Does anyone know the differences between the la2, la3, and la4, or a web site that explains the history of them.

Blackface 1176's are fat as hell.. La2's are tubey sounding slow responce good for snares and such ... La3's are cool and La4's have more knobs... haha.. well, the La4's sound good, but their not are easy to use of course, you have to dial in 'your sound' as apposed to the La2's having their sound, the la4's you have the timing options where the la2's you just have peak reduction and gain ... But the 1176's deff are the fattest sounding in my mind..

I think there's a history on the Universal Audio webpage.
later,
m