An all-tube optical compressor that can add just the right touch of magic to anything from delicate vocals to slammin' drums.
The Tube-Tech CL 1B compressor differs from many other compressors, in that the gain reduction element is made from a non-semiconductor element, which in itself has a very low harmonic distortion and none of the non-linearity problems involved when using most semiconductor elements. Furthermore there is no long-term degradation of the element thus giving it almost infinite life. This signal processor is placed after the input-transformer of the compressor and followed by an all tube-based amplifier with a gain of 0dB to +30 dB. Thus the signal is not fed through any semiconductor circuitry on its way to the output.
The amplifier consists of two tubes (valves) in push-pull configuration (one ECC 83 as the pre-amp and phase splitter, and one ECC 82 as the output stage), and an output transformer. The power supply for the preamp and phase splitter are stabilized and the heaters of both tubes (valves) are fed with a stabilized DC voltage. The whole amplifier (including input and output transformer) and the power supplies are placed on one PC-board. Both input and output are balanced (600 Ohms) and fully floating. The in/out key switches the compressor in and out without clicks.
