Budget Stereo Compressor recommendation ?

[TascamJimi]

@FabSub
THANK YOU !!! That was very informative !! I was leaning towards the DBX, but still haven't pulled the trigger . I tend to over-research stuff before I finally pull the trigger !!

Are there major differences in the 166 line ??? I noticed after a quick look at the site I was going to order from have :

166
166A
166XL
166XS

That's a lot of options based on the same ' base model' ! LOL

 

[RFR]

Earlier 166 models are USA made. Mine’s one of those, and I trust it’s better.

Usually when overseas outsourcing is started quality goes down.

Just my opinion

 

[Papanate]

I had a 166 , 166a and 166xl - IRRC when using a high amount of compression- the 166 sounded full and more trans`parent - the XL sounded duller and kind of choked - the 166A was similar to the 166 - all dBX units sounded duller the more you compressed BTW - these days the 166 are often noisy - the opamps and the components don’t age well- The 166A and XL were much quieter. - so with a 166 it probably would need new opamps and capacitors and some sort of power-decoupling mod to reduce noise - which would be $250 -$350 unless you did the work yourself.

Out of the group - and not spending anymore money than is necessary I would probably go with 166a - if you were to upgrade the 166 then I think you should consider the Symetrix 501 for the price - if I remember correctly the 501 was superior in a lot of ways to the 166.