[quote author="khstudio"]Cool... I was lucky to get the last pair of 202x's from the Black Market.
I'm using the single 2151's in my GSSL right now & was hoping it was those VCA's in there because I like the character. That thing sits on my drum buss 99% of the time.
Thanks,
Kevin[/quote]
I'm not sure that the old discrete VCAs don't get a little too much nostalgia induced love because they're old and now scarce. While perhaps lower noise than the lowest common denominator modern IC VCA, throwing several of the new version in parallel will knock a few dB off their noise floor and deliver superior linearity.
Of course if your interest is to get the coloration (distortion) of a slightly mismatched discrete VCA never mind. Presumably it wasn't to the original equipment engineers who even included THD trims in premium designs. FWIW I seem to recall a relationship between noise floor, distortion, bias current, and resistor values used around old 202 so you might be able to get even more distortion tweaking bias current and/or Rs, if that's desired?
I don't know if there is any connection but THAT corp (maker of dbx VCAs) has recently released some low noise matched transistor arrays (300 series)
http://www.thatcorp.com/datashts/300data.pdf that may be good candidates for 202 replacement/upgrade in old designs. Not a drop in, but if it works somebody could whip up an adapter PCB. Has anybody tried or looked at these for this application?
JR