the rnc was designed to sound good for $150 and it does it well. It also sounds better than pretty much anything else in its price range, something else I'd agree with. It sounds pretty shitty to my ears though, and when it was released too many people saying "good for the money" through the telephone game turned into "good". It significantly degrades and constricts any signal that you put into it. Again, for $150 who gives a shit, but if you want to forget about that and discuss what it does-
Mult two channels of a CD, feed two to your console then two to your RNC, then to another two channels on your console. Make sure that the CD going into the RNC is above threshold so the RNC is not compressing or limiting at all, just passing the signal through the circuit but with no gain reduction. Then compare the two. that should be your answer right there. Play the same game with an 1176 or a 33609 or whatever. did I just compare a $150 RNC to a $3K neve, well, yes I did. If its not improving your signal path, its not improving your signal path, so why use it? I guess sometimes you need a compressor and sure, sometimes it doesnt matter, but this whole BS about it being so transparent really makes me want to first gag and second question the discretion of the person claiming its transparent. YES, the compression is transparent in the sense that its not pumping away if you dont want it to (to which I say, why use a compressor in the first place, but thats a different discussion) but the audio path is hardly transparent, my RNC shaves off a considerable amount of the high end and pretty much makes whatever you put into it sound lackluster coming out of it. But the compression is transparent.... Transparent control in a box that degrades, or at least in my opinion, doesnt enhance the audio path is a somewhat worthless feature for sure.
Granted, Im lucky to have some of the worlds finest limiters at my disposal in my studio, but ultimately this shouldnt matter too much. If you need a limiter thats cheap and works, the RNC rules. It does kind of suck though. If you are already building something, that $150 is SO well better spent on lundahls for your G1176. The RNC is apparently based on the SSL quad, loosely, the Gyraf SSL completely destroys the RNC on all fronts and you can build one of those for less than $150 if you dont use a sifam meter.
Again, this is my opinion, the rest of the world seems to love them, so whatever. Do that little a/b test for yourself and see if you think Im off my rocker. For the money, its a bargain, but its also stupidly cheap and you do get what you pay for in life.
dave
