Weight Tank as a Locomotive sub brand is a less costy than Locomotive – but by no means „cheaper“.
Weight Tank – Not just the „cheaper“ Locomotive sub brand
The Locomotive „Emma“ in the famous children's books of German writer Michale Ende one day has a „baby“. „Molly“. The audio company Locomotive
has a sub brand called Weight Tank. There aren't any additional coincidences, maybe disregarding the fact that track vehicles and Locomotive/Weight Tank are known for being sturdy pieces of hardware.
Weight Tank units can be offered less expensive, because they utilize lesser number of parts and have a shorter assembly time. The production anyhow, like Locomotive's, is in the USA. Currently there are two Weight Tank products available, the microphone preamp Weight Tank WT-72 and the compressor WT-COMP. Both units follow Weight Tanks principle of being colourful tube devices.
Ok, who does not want to own an original Siemens Sitral V72 tube preamp? If you can dig up the heap of money needed for a well-maintained unit in a housing, go ahead and buy one. Weight Tank WT-72 gives you that sound for significantly less money in a new unit. There are no solid state components, input and output transformers and a couple of easily availably EF86 tubes. But the effort of recreating that divine V72 sound goes further: The Weight Tank V72 uses AC- and DC-feedback to set gain. A very clever switching system is implemented to prevent switching from creating unwanted pops and noises: Less than 36 dB of gain is being achieved by attenuating the signal for the first stage tube. Gains up to max (56 dB, so 22 dB more than the original V72) alters the AC/DC-feedback. As the amplification of the unit sounds really staggering, you will want to use the DI and line input. Switching to line activates 36 dB Pad, so you can start with 0 dB of gain – but that wonderful, rich sound.
Weight Tank WT-COMP is a tube compressor utilizing the vari-mu-principle. It's fat sound, soft knee and colourful harmonics make it an ideal companion for literally every instrument – not to speak of vocals! There are three transformers forming the sound: input, output and interstage. But the 6BC8 and 12AU7 tubes can claim having a considerable proportion of putting character into the signal.
The Weight Tank WT-COMP is utterly easy to use, because input and output gain, attack and release are common parameters. The „Round/Drive“ switch allows to switch between a soft and warm and a more forward, driving sound character.