The Grace Design m102 Optical Compressor takes the sonic performance characteristics from the compressor section of the Grace Design m103 Channel Strip.
The unit is based on an optical attenuator, the purest high fidelity gain control mechanism available, and provides gentle limiting to fairly aggressive compression while remaining neutral and transparent.
Housed in a 1U, half-rack enclosure, the single channel m102 sports a familiar and elegant industrial design that was derived from the Grace Design m101 Microphone Preamp. Front panel controls include +/- 10dB of input and output level on rotary pots that allows for fine tuning of gain settings. Four additional pots allow the user to control Threshold, Attack, Release and Ratio settings. A three position switch selects Normal operation and the added ability to Link two m102 units for stereo compression or to select a Sidechain input for frequency dependent compression. A 10 segment LED array displays gain reduction levels, and a bi-color LED is provided for signal presence and peak detection. The rear panel includes an AC inlet for the built in universal power supply, XLR and ¼" TRS balanced input and output connections, and a ¼" jack used for linking two m102's or for use as a side-chain input.
