Klark Teknik DN500

cheap decent s/h available compressor, the Klark Teknik DN500 is a dual/stereo compressor with auto feature & stereo linking.

The Klark Teknik DN series from about 1991... This is the DN500 stereo compressor/limiter/expander... other items in the DN series were the DN504 quad comp/limiter, the DN510 dual midi noise gate, and the DN514 quad auto-gate -

You see these sometimes s/h, they are robust and pretty well made, you get two channels, each with three sub-sections - Each side is the same, and the compressor features the usual parameters of Threshold, Ratio, aAttack & release, there is also a 'knee' control to adjust the ratio of compression to threshold so it is adjustable from easier 'soft-knee' to hard-knee (see compressor page in the dancetech FX articles for more info) - You have nice compression gain led ladders for each side, a comp IN/OUT switch for each channel, a slave switch to set the required slave channel when working in stereo, and a bypass switch too for each channel...

The compressor also features an 'Auto/Manual' switch for the envelope (att'/rel') which might be useful...

ok, you also got a variable-ratio expander/gate section each side which is in effect a noise-gate to keep things quiet when signals are reduced at the input. The expander gate has attack, threshold, the ratio setting & release plus a gain make up to adjust the output level.

Finally you got a limiter section for each side, with a simple threshold control to act as a hard-limter on the end of each output which might be useful to set an absolute max output for use with digital recordings.

well there it is... cheap s/h decent compressor, pretty well respected brand.. check 'em out if you see one in the free ad's - comments please ...