Phase Linear MODEL-1100
A model number that turns up in two completely different worlds — and the archive can't yet confirm which one it belongs to.
Overview
Here's the honest problem with the Phase Linear MODEL-1100: the documentation trail runs cold almost immediately. No research material was ever assembled for this entry — no spec sheet, no owner's manual, no period review that names a Phase Linear MODEL-1100 specifically. What exists instead is a pile of source excerpts that carry the "1100" designation for entirely different products, and a responsible archive has to say so rather than stitch them together into a phantom.
The first source of confusion is Aphex. Advertising and manual copy for the Aphex Thermionics Model 1100 — a two-channel discrete Class A tube microphone preamp with 24-bit/96 kHz A/D conversion — appears in the source material and describes a unit that offers up to 20 dB more headroom than conventional preamps and an EIN of -135 dB, with proprietary touches like a Reflected Plate Amplifier tube circuit and a MicLim limiter. That is a genuine, well-documented piece of studio gear. It is also not a Phase Linear product. The 1100 badge is shared, and nothing more.
The second is Ampex. Studio directories reprinted in the trade press list an "Ampex Model 1100" 16-track tape recorder among the machines installed at facilities like Soundtrax in San Diego and MCA Whitney in Glendale. Again: a real 1100, and again a different manufacturer entirely. A 16-track reel-to-reel and a tube mic preamp have nothing to do with the Phase Linear name, and the archive will not pretend otherwise.
The period-review chunks that mention Phase Linear in this context are talking about other things: a Modern Recording (September 1979, p.37) news item covers the company's 300 Series Two power amplifier, rated at 120 watts per channel into 8 ohms, and the remaining chunks describe equalizers and speakers from other makers. None of them describe a Phase Linear MODEL-1100.
That leaves the collector with a name and no substance behind it. It's possible the designation belongs to a Phase Linear component that never got written up, or that it's a clerical collision with the Aphex and Ampex units that share the number. It's equally possible it's a typo in somebody's inventory list that has been propagating ever since. Until a Phase Linear document — a manual, a catalog page, a review — surfaces that names this exact model, the archive treats the MODEL-1100 as unverified. Production years, original price, topology, power ratings, and market values all remain unknown, and none of them will be guessed at here.
If you own something badged Phase Linear MODEL-1100, the useful thing to do is photograph the faceplate, the rear panel, and any serial or model plate, and send it in. That's how entries like this get rescued from the maybe pile. For now, the honest verdict is the shortest one: the number exists, the documentation doesn't, and the two other 1100s in the source material belong to somebody else.
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