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Golden Age Project COMP-554 1-Channel Vintage Style Tube Compressor for 500 Series Rack Format
SKU: GACOMP554 MFR: COMP554
Earn VIP Reward PointsKey Features
- Get vintage tube compression with the COMP-554, perfect for your 500 series rack.
- Enhance your sound with selectable output metering, ideal for precise gain reduction control.
- Achieve balanced input and output via transformer, ensuring top-notch signal integrity.
- Experience low noise and high-quality discrete signal path for pristine audio recordings.
- Shape your tone with a 3-position EQ switch, offering versatile sound sculpting options.
- Integrate seamlessly into your studio with this robust, single-channel tube compressor.
Special Order?Estimated to Ship: 08/17/2025
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About Golden Age Project COMP-554
Let the COMP-554 1-Channel Vintage Style Tube Compressor for 500 Series Rack Format transport you back to the golden age of audio production. This unit, a rack version of the esteemed COMP-54 MkII, is a single-channel, vintage-style compressor designed specifically for the 500-format.
The COMP-554 is meticulously crafted with only discrete components such as resistors, capacitors, and transistors, mirroring the construction of high-quality audio components before the advent of integrated circuits. This attention to detail extends to the input and output, which are transformer balanced, and the inclusion of a third interstage transformer.
Modern technology, while efficient and cost-effective, often falls short in delivering the rich sound quality and character that audio enthusiasts crave. This is where the COMP-554 shines, offering the warm, smooth, sweet, and musical sound that vintage equipment is celebrated for.
The COMP-554 employs a class-A circuit similar to the iconic 2254 compressor, designed in 1969. This legendary compressor is renowned for its unique sound character, which has graced countless recordings across various genres. Now, the essence of this vintage sound is accessible to all, thanks to the COMP-554 1-Channel Vintage Style Tube Compressor for 500 Series Rack Format.
Experience the unparalleled sound quality that only a vintage-style compressor can provide with the COMP-554. This unit is not just a piece of equipment; it's a gateway to a bygone era of audio production.
Golden Age Project COMP-554 Features
- Vintage style electronics. No integrated circuits in the signal path
- Based on a classic diode bridge design
- Transformer balanced input and output
- Prepared for a Carnhill transformer upgrade (standard in the Plus version)
- Flexible control range for threshold, ratio, attack and recovery
- All controls except the gain make-up one are stepped
- Three selectable sidechain filter frequencies
- Three flexible sidechain options; Internal, Insert and External
- The external sidechain I/O is electronically balanced at 4dBu and appears on the right slot rack connections
- Separate switches for hardwire bypass and compression out
- Two insert connectors for inserting the EQ-573 in the main audio and/or sidechain signal path
- Meter selectable for output (two reference levels, +4 and +12 dBu) and gain reduction
- Possibility to link two units for stereo operation
- Three position Air EQ switch, Flat, +3 or +6 dB at 30 kHz
- Two position output termination switch for different tones
- A soft start circuit that ramps up the supply voltage slowly (about 10 sec.) to avoid a power-on current surge
- A great sound that suits most sound sources and genres
- The EQ-73 has stepped frequency controls that offers a wide selection of frequencies from 20 Hz to 24 kHz
- The Low and High frequency bands are shelving and the mid frequency band is of the bell type
- The control range is +/-15 dB for the two lower bands and +/- 18dB for the high frequency band
- There are separate bypass switches for all three bands
- The EQ-73 is made to be used together with one of our PRE-73 models that has an Insert jack. It can also be used with many other units that has a low level insert jack
- Combining a PRE-73 and an EQ-73 and using a UNITE rack kit to mount them together, one will get a 19-inch 1073-style unit at a low cost and with a great sound