X-Nico

Direct to Disc

The concept references the album's use of older, but not obsolete, and (arguably) superior recording technologies: tube amplifiers, and the direct to disc recording process.

Valve audio amplifier

the Ultra-Linear output stage (a tapped push-pull output transformer providing power intermediate between triodes and pentodes, at lower distortion than either) was originated by Alan Blumlein in 1937 in the UK, but popularised following publication of a paper by David Hafler and Keroes in the USA in 1951, and became the dominant topology during the post war recovery of consumer products

see also