About
Helping the story continue. Since 1996.
Thermal Relief Design brings uncompromising care to legendary gear: repair and restoration for professional audio equipment, based in Las Vegas.
Our philosophy
Music is story. From the first spark of an idea to the final mix, every note exists to say something human: joy, loss, love, defiance. The gear in your hands is part of that story, and when it fails, the story stops.
Since 1996, Thermal Relief Design has been there to start it again. We don’t rush, and we don’t cut corners, because what’s on our bench isn’t just equipment. It’s the instrument of someone’s voice.
We’re here to help the story continue.
Our history
Three decades of doing it right
Since 1996, Thermal Relief Design has designed and serviced professional audio equipment for recording studios, live concert sound and theatrical performances.
The story behind the name
Thermal Relief Design began in 1987 as TLM Electronics, in Pleasantville, New York. When the business moved to Las Vegas in 1996, it took the name it carries today.
The name comes straight from the workbench. In circuit board design, a thermal relief is the small pad that joins a component to a large copper area through narrow spokes, so the joint holds its heat and can be soldered cleanly and made to last. Most people never see it, and that is the point: it is the quiet, careful detail that keeps a circuit working, and the story it carries going.
On July 1, 2015, SORA Enterprises took over Thermal Relief Design, with Joel Gette as Chief Engineer, closing the early years of Thermal Relief Design. To mark the new chapter, a newly designed red phoenix TRD logo was introduced, and it still stands as our heritage mark. Today Thermal Relief Design is led by Chief Engineer Joel Gette.
Joel Gette has lived in audio since boyhood, designing and building electronics from the age of eleven. Over more than 38 years he has engineered in the studio and on the road, and worked across nearly every corner of the industry: sales, product specialist, film audio and music. As Chief Engineer of Thermal Relief Design, he brings all of it to the bench.
Growing since 2015
Since then, Thermal Relief Design’s footprint has grown well beyond Las Vegas. In 2015 we refurbished the original prototype Amek M3000, serial number 1: a full teardown, a complete rewire, and new capacitors and switches. In 2016 we took on an SSL 9080J originally installed at Metalworks Studios in Canada, which we refurbished and commissioned. Console service has been at the heart of our work ever since. That same 9080J has since come full circle: today it is set up as a 48-channel desk in our Chief Engineer’s own studio (see the 9080J story). In September 2019 the team traveled to South Africa to decommission Focusrite Studio Console No. 005 and bring it back to the USA, work later covered by Mix and Focusrite. Today Thermal Relief Design is an authorized service center for brands including SPL, Martin Audio, Alcons Audio, Antelope Audio and Focusrite, and services consoles and premium equipment from Solid State Logic, AMS Neve and virtually every premium brand.
Our work has ranged from console interface wiring for major New York studios and TV broadcasters, to circuit and PCB design for Sound Associates’ assistive listening systems, to decommissioning Focusrite Studio Console No. 005 in South Africa and bringing it back to the USA.
Through all of it, one rule has held: work done right matters more than work done quickly.
The heritage mark
Where it began
When SORA Enterprises took over in 2015, the red phoenix was introduced to mark the new chapter, carrying the 1996 date the Thermal Relief Design name was born. It still stands as our heritage mark, alongside the black and gold of who we are today.
Next step
Start a Repair
Tell us about your gear and what it’s doing. We’ll take it from there.