Klark Teknik DN 22
A dual-channel graphic equalizer that earned its reputation in the rack. Engineers reached for it when a room fought back.
Overview
By the late 1970s the company's graphic equalizers had become, in the words of its own advertising, "a generic in its own right." The brand name was shorthand for serious tone control in recording, reproduction, and measurement work. The Klark Teknik DN 22 was a dual-channel graphic equalizer, and it turns up repeatedly in the era's studio inventories and hire lists, usually listed plainly among the working tools rather than the showpieces. Studio Sound (July 1978, p.110) ran the company's pitch for the DN27 and DN22 side by side, describing the pair as "in a class of their own." That is marketing copy, of course.
In practical terms, the DN 22 is a two-channel graphic EQ built for correcting room acoustics and untangling complex equalization problems. The dual-channel format means a stereo pair of graphic bands in a single chassis. One unit handles a stereo bus, a pair of monitor sends, or both sides of a room-tuning job without doubling up on hardware. Engineers who owned them describe them as the equalizer you inserted when the problem was real - a corrective instrument, not a tone-shaping toy. Studio Sound (July 1982, p.85) later grouped the DN 22 and DN 27A together as "standard tools for correcting room acoustics and complex equalisation problems."
The DN 22 got used well beyond the studio. A 1980 broadcast-equipment classified listing offered a DN-22 "dual channel graphic equalizer, as new," among the working inventory of a professional audio operation. That suggests a standard line item, not a curiosity. A Recording Engineer/Producer feature on Judas Priest's live sound described a channel-inserted processing chain that included a Klark-Teknik Model DN22 graphic equalizer ahead of a dbx compressor and noise gate, all feeding the subharmonic processing that gave the kick drum its weight. The DN 22 sat mid-chain there, doing the corrective work.
Klark Teknik's own advertising leaned hard on the idea that the equalizers were assembled and checked by engineers rather than rolling off a production line, and that the guaranteed performance justified a price the copy freely admitted was high. The company's broader reputation, built across a range of precision signal-processing products, gave the claim some weight. Studio Sound (October 1979, p.104) noted the firm's reputation for "manufacturing the ultimate in signal processing products," each representing "the very best in its specific technology." Collectors and working engineers tend to treat the DN 22 the way the period did, as a dependable, unglamorous piece of the signal chain that did its job and asked little in return.
The DN 22 is a graphic equalizer, not a parametric. The bands are fixed, and the operator works within the layout Klark Teknik chose rather than dialing in arbitrary frequencies. It is a tool for correction, and the people who prize it prize it for that. The units surface on the used market as working inventory, often described in the same breath as other studio staples, and they are bought by engineers who know what a graphic EQ is for and want one that behaves. It has never been a collector's trophy the way some esoteric processors are.
For anyone assembling a period-correct signal chain or simply wanting a stereo graphic EQ with a real professional pedigree, the DN 22 remains a sensible, unromantic choice. It sits comfortably alongside the DN27 and the later DN 30/30 in the Klark Teknik equalizer lineage, and it carries the same house character: precise, purposeful, and built to be used rather than admired. The advertising promised that owners would "never settle for second best again." Decades on, the units still turning up in hire lists and studio racks suggest a fair number of engineers took that seriously.
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