Ok, I went and ordered the Golden Age COMP-3A audio leveler. I was planning on smoothing out vocals with it on the way into the DAW. I record folk/bluegrass music, where a clear smooth signal is desired. I thought this was going to beat all. So I built a small mixer in PT where I would record in my vocal, and one track would be recording the dry signal off the mic and preamp, and the other track would record the wet signal going from the preamp through the compresser. I looked at the wave forms of each, and obviously the wet signal was tamed compared to the dry signal. But the wet signal was not clear and alive. It was dead. I tried it again with less peak reduction on the vocal. Better wave form, but still sounded pretty lifeless. I concluded I like the dry signal better. I can compress using plugins better than what I was getting through the COMP-3A. And I spent considerable amount of time testing the different modes on the unit to make sure I knew how to work it ok. So if you're planning on using two of them to put a stereo mix, I can see that. But don't bother using it for tracking acoustic vocals and guitars. You get a cleaner signal without it.