I also used premium quality gold-plated XLR and 1/4" connectors on the rear panel, which really helped give the unit a quality look and feel. I also upgraded the looks of the unit, going with a 3/16" thick, black, anodized front panel with engraved nomenclature. The front panel also featured die-cast, black, anodized aluminum handles, which made getting the unit in and out of the rack much easier. As it turned out, I don't know of a single instance where any CLA-2A was ever used this way, and I eventually did away with the unbalanced ins and outs as they were a pain in the butt to wire, particularly if nobody was using them. I also went to great lengths to design a unit with both balanced and unbalanced inputs and outputs, this time with no shock value :-) My thinking was that an LA-2A-style compressor might come in handy in an instrument signal path, such as a bass or synth. These changes resulted in a 10 dB improvement in the unweighted signal-to-noise ratio of the units compared to a stock, vintage Teletronix LA-2A.
I'm sure manufacturers who are putting out hundreds or thousands of units a year can't do this, but I'm glad I did. Although this makes the unit a little harder to service should anything break, it enhances sound of the unit and makes the unit more reliable. Another thing I did which I think contributes to the transparent sound of the unit is to eliminate all connectors inside the unit, in both the audio path and power supply. I took the liberty of incorporating fully filtered and regulated DC power supplies for both the filament and B+ voltages, I upgraded the quality of the components dramatically, using metal film resistors, Wima polypropylene capacitors, Mogami cable and other, top-quality parts. I also went to great lengths to create optimized PC board layouts for the audio and control circuits, as well as for the power supply and meter circuits.
This time around there were several things about the original design that I didn't mind updating. Even with all its shortcomings I considered the prototype CLA-2A a success and decided to continue with the evolution of the design.
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