Shattered Glass Audio has released Phoenix LT, a free analog tube preamp simulation plugin for desktop platforms and iOS.
This release caught my attention because Phoenix LT is essentially the successor to the discontinued SGA1566 preamp. In my opinion, SGA1566 was one of the best free tube preamp plugins on the market for years, and I used it constantly for subtle tube saturation duties, including alongside our own free BPB Saturator.
Seeing that the old SGA1566 plugin is officially replaced rather than simply discontinued and abandoned is excellent news.
Phoenix LT is advertised as the lightweight free version of the commercial Phoenix 2 plugin. However, it feels like a pretty close modern continuation of SGA1566.
You can preview the full version of SGA Phoenix in the video below.
The free plugin is built around a full real-time circuit simulation of an all-tube preamp design using two 12AU7 triodes in the gain stages. According to the user manual, the entire circuit is modeled at the component level and processed with automatic 4x oversampling to keep aliasing under control.
Feature-wise, Phoenix LT is very similar to the old SGA1566. You get input, gain, and output controls, plus a three-band Baxandall-style EQ with bass, mid, and treble bands. Just like before, the EQ can be placed before or after the preamp stage, or removed from the signal path entirely, which makes it easy to shape the tone going in or clean things up afterward.
The most obvious change compared to SGA1566 is the updated GUI, which looks cleaner and more modern. It’s also resizable.
But the more important upgrade, at least for me, is the addition of a dry/wet mix control. The old SGA1566 didn’t offer this, and having it here makes Phoenix LT far more flexible for parallel processing. Blending in tube saturation without completely flattening transients is now effortless.
There’s also an auto-gain function, which should help keep levels consistent when pushing the input harder for saturation or overdrive. As with the original plugin, Phoenix LT can be used subtly for warmth, pushed into saturation compression, or driven harder for gritty tube distortion.
I haven’t done a deep A/B comparison yet, and I’ll be testing Phoenix LT more thoroughly soon, but on paper, it looks like Shattered Glass Audio has preserved what made SGA1566 special while adding a few modern workflow improvements.
The old SGA1566 plugin is still available for free via Plugin Boutique.
Phoenix LT is available for free for macOS and Windows, with supported formats including VST3, AUv2, and AAX. The desktop version requires macOS 14 or newer, or Windows 11. Phoenix LT is also available as an app on iOS.
Download: Phoenix LT (FREE)
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Last Updated on December 24, 2025 by Tomislav Zlatic.
