Save 5% £999.00 £945.00 (Inc VAT)
£787.50 (Ex VAT). Shipping calculated at checkout.
The 543 Mono Compressor delivers the unobtrusive, musical-sounding dynamic control and brick-wall limiting made famous in the Portico 5043 to the 500 series format. The 543 features a fully controllable compressor-limiter with feed-forward / feedback modes, Peak / RMS detection and a built in side chain high pass filter. With an unrivaled heritage and a tremendous feature set, the 543 yields a combination of rich warmth, flexibility and precision that is sure to resonate in the ears of sound engineers the world over.
Built around Mr. Rupert Neve`s custom transformer designs, each 543 module encompasses individually controllable threshold, attack, release, makeup gain, ratio, side chain HPF, Feed-Forward / Feed-back selection and Peak/RMS detection modes. With the compressor inactive, the 543 may be used as a transformer-coupled, high-performance line amplifier, and two 543 may be linked for stereo operation as well. The chassis is built to standard 500 series specifications, with power and I/O provided by the rack.
In order to control gain, a V.C.A. or Voltage Controlled Amplifier (or Attenuator) is used. There are many types of V.C. including the use of tubes, discrete and integrated solid state circuits and naturally non-linear devices, each one having its characteristic behavior that reflects sonically on the final performance, and gives it a character or signature that can be musically attractive or not! The 543 makes use of a very accurate, low noise, low distortion V.C.A. having, essentially, no signature of its own.
A part of the audio signal is rectified and smoothed to produce a suitable control voltage for the V.C.A. which has to respond very quickly and have low distortion. If the response is too fast, low frequency signals will themselves, be gain controlled! If the response is too slow, the signal will overshoot and the first few cycles will not get compressed. The speed and accuracy of the response, known as the “attack”, and the time frame that gain remains under the initial control, known as “release” or “recovery” and plays a large part in the way a compressor sounds.
The 543 also has the ability to switch between feed-forward and feed-back modes. If the V.C.A. Control voltage is taken from the 543 output, (i.e. after the V.C.A.) it cannot act immediately on the V.C.A. because it has already been modified by settings of the V.C.A. and circuits through which it has passed. This is known as a “Feed-Back” compressor. The two compression characteristics are quite different; there is more “Overshoot” and both the attack and recovery ramps are changed, providing the user with powerful choices.
In most of Mr. Rupert Neve earliest designs, feed-back detection controlling the VCA with a rectified voltage from the unit output was intrinsic to the musical dynamic response. However, the very nature of a feedback compressor limits the attack time of the compression circuit. To offer faster, more technically accurate response times, feed-forward detection was implemented on Mr. Rupert Neve’s more modern designs. With the FF / FB switch, both classic and modern VCA responses are available.
UK Mainland – Orders over £99 qualify for FREE standard shipping (1-3 working days) We also offer a range of chargeable express shipping options for next working day, pre 12pm, pre 10.30am, Saturday deliveries and deliveries on a specific date. Our main UK courier is DPD.
UK Non Mainland – Not eligible for free shipping. These areas include (but are not limited to) Isle of Man, Isle of Wight, Isles of Scilly, Jersey, Guernsey, Northern Ireland, Orkney, Scottish Highlands and Shetland. Shipping costs for these ares will be calculated at checkout.
International/Export – Delivery charges will be calculated at checkout. All orders that are in stock we aim to dispatch from our warehouse within 48 hours. We ship all orders outside of the UK, NI, Isle of Man, Channel Islands via Fedex. All prices and delivery charges are exclusive of VAT for export. The customer is responsible to pay for any additional duties and charges.
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