I purchased this unit and it arrived a few days ago.
The unit arrived visually looking magnificent, everything looks and feels solid however as many others have shared, indeed on the first twist of the CH1 compressor, threshold knob, the plastic cap broke off.
Then after pluggining in the unit, during initial tests, 2 more caps broke off the pots as well. When I took off all the caps 90% of them had cracks in the inlays where they attach the pots, so consider that when purchasing this unit, you will have to be purchasing caps with metal shafts for each pot as well.
Luckily I have a shop nearby and was able to swiftly get some nice pot caps with metal shafts within a few minutes and continued on exploring the unit.
What I found is a compressor with a lot of character, that has a very nice, coloured sound and feels quite versitile.
The thresholds are set significantly high overall, which means that the limiter will only be shaving a few db if used on its own, unless you drive the compressor into it. While the compressor will get to smashing the drums but wont completely destroy them as the threshold will allow you to only go so far.
The only way to get round this would be to use a different unit to drive the singal feeding into the compressor, however I am happy using the unit without overdriving it.
The attack times on the limiter are not the fastest attack times but the limiter still does a good job complementing the compressor, especially since the compressors max ratio is 6:1, the limiter can help further shape the sound to your desire. I only wish there was a gain control after the limiter as well, so you can drive the compressor into the limiter even further while maintaining the output level adequate without having to touch the line input gains on your interface.
The compressor sounds very punchy but also very colorful. Both attack settings are on the slower side for percussion material, so they always let a part of the transient through. In the faster setting, only a very short pluck comes through, similar to the dbx 166xs fast attack times, while the slower attack lets a nice good chunk of the attack of a snare or kick go through before compressing, so you can definitely perform the slow attack fast release trick with this compressor to enhance your drum groups or individual instruments as well. The compressor can definitely smash drums gently but nicely, tame a bass guitar while retaining punch, and can also easily be used to tame and shape guitars and vocals quickly as well as many other instruments.
Generaly it is closer to a specific sounding, quite restrained unit and is in no way surgical or do the pots allow ultra precise tunning of the parameters, but then again, you wouldnt be buying this compressor as a transparent surgical tool anyway.
Something interesting I found about the unit is how it functions in stereo link mode. Both channels control the gain reduction for each channel, but the channel that decides the attack, release and ratio at the time is the channel where the signal has surpassed the threshold more at the time. So effectively when I am using it in stereo, I ensure that I have mirrored the settings of both mono compressors for cohesion, even though the unit is linked.
A few things to raise attention to:
Because this unit is dual mono with channel linking. There is a flaw in the design and the ratios of the compressor on the right channel are slightly offset to the ratios on the compressor on the left. What this means is that when used on stereo material and performing heavy amounts of gain reduction, the compressor on the right can output a level up to 0.7db higher than on the left due to this gentle ratio mismatch, which can effectively infuence the stereo image and shift it to one side. The thresholds are also slightly off in dual mono mode as well, however this doesnt seem to make such a difference. I did not find the same issues with the limiters ratios or thresholds, so this could just be the QC for my unit. All in all I still love it and may just have to be smart when using it in stereo and choose to perform a sum and diff routing before and after the unit to use it in mid side.
All in all I do recommend this compressor, especially for the price its a no brainer.
The build feels solid other than the caps, the VUs are easy to read even though unlit, the LEDs are bright enough yet not too bright and help you understand the units mode of operation with ease. All of the switches in general feel solid, the pots seem solid overall (however bare in mind that all the threshold and gain pots are with plastic shafts under the caps, which I do not know how will affect their longlyhood). Someone very keen on modding may decide to swapout the threshold and gain pots for some that dont feel as stiff and are with metal shafts.
If you are in need of a dual mono, stereo linkable, colorful compressor that is a diode bridge design and is in the lower budget tiers for live or studio, I do recommend this unit!
The stepped controls are super helpful for recall, however if you are looking to get a great solid,budget, stereo compressor, dont care about dual mono, and want to ensure full cohesion between the left and righ channels then something like the FMR RNC or RNLA bigth be a better option and you will save on costs, however you will have a more solid stereo image with worse recall due to their non stepped design.
