Tubefreak
Well-known member
Hi,
This compressor just came in, found it on ebay. Unfortunately the seller knows nothing about it's origin. And I wonder if someone here might know more about it.
There is a sticker on the top from Deutsche Grammophon Ges. (DGG), so maybe it was made for them. It's a four channel compressor build around black can DBX 202 chips. Although these chips are known (according to wiki) for noise and distortion, I didn't notice this during a short test.
The cool thing about this comp is that you can link channels 1+2 and 3+4, but also all four together! I would reckon that this would only be useful for quadraphonic recording/mixing/mastering.
There is no bypass on the unit, the signal always runs through the circuit. Setting the ratio to 1:1 eliminates the gain reduction. The output control is boost only, which is nice.
The PSU is from a company from the Netherlands. Also on the inside is some writing in dutch. So maybe someone in the Netherlands made it (for Deutsche Grammophon), resided in Germany and is now back in the Netherlands.
Only for a couple of minutes I've test the unit. It sounds fine and the compressor works good. On a good solid mix it sounds like a bootstrap comp where the high level stays intact, and the low level audio is brought up. Very nice!!! On spiky mixes it reacts to the peaks as expacted. The attack and release are very useful and both go from (very) fast to reasonably long.
What stands out is that it's not really sensitive to low end. There is no pumping caused by a big low end on a kick!!! Which is a big plus (I sold an original P38 because it was way too sensitive and had no side chain options). Someone really did their best during the design to keep it from pumping! This might be a valid wish for a mastering comp for classic music, which would explain the DGG sticker. There is also some info on the net about DGG doing some tests with quadraphonics.
So, anyone any ideas? Could it be a one off build in the Netherlands for DGG? Any idea on it's era of birth?
All pics can be viewed at www.tubefreak.com/pics/quadcomp/
Kind regards
Maarten van Helden
This compressor just came in, found it on ebay. Unfortunately the seller knows nothing about it's origin. And I wonder if someone here might know more about it.
There is a sticker on the top from Deutsche Grammophon Ges. (DGG), so maybe it was made for them. It's a four channel compressor build around black can DBX 202 chips. Although these chips are known (according to wiki) for noise and distortion, I didn't notice this during a short test.
The cool thing about this comp is that you can link channels 1+2 and 3+4, but also all four together! I would reckon that this would only be useful for quadraphonic recording/mixing/mastering.
There is no bypass on the unit, the signal always runs through the circuit. Setting the ratio to 1:1 eliminates the gain reduction. The output control is boost only, which is nice.
The PSU is from a company from the Netherlands. Also on the inside is some writing in dutch. So maybe someone in the Netherlands made it (for Deutsche Grammophon), resided in Germany and is now back in the Netherlands.
Only for a couple of minutes I've test the unit. It sounds fine and the compressor works good. On a good solid mix it sounds like a bootstrap comp where the high level stays intact, and the low level audio is brought up. Very nice!!! On spiky mixes it reacts to the peaks as expacted. The attack and release are very useful and both go from (very) fast to reasonably long.
What stands out is that it's not really sensitive to low end. There is no pumping caused by a big low end on a kick!!! Which is a big plus (I sold an original P38 because it was way too sensitive and had no side chain options). Someone really did their best during the design to keep it from pumping! This might be a valid wish for a mastering comp for classic music, which would explain the DGG sticker. There is also some info on the net about DGG doing some tests with quadraphonics.
So, anyone any ideas? Could it be a one off build in the Netherlands for DGG? Any idea on it's era of birth?
All pics can be viewed at www.tubefreak.com/pics/quadcomp/
Kind regards
Maarten van Helden
