Grace Design m502 (Demo Deal)

The Grace Design m502 500 Series Optical Compressor takes the sonic performance characteristics from the compressor section of the well-regarded 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.

The m502 employs the same compression circuit topology as the Grace Design m102 Optical Compressor but is housed in a chassis for installation in the popular 500 series racks. The front panel includes a bypass switch, a 3-position input gain switch ranging from -10 to +10, a link switch, 10 segment LED array to display gain reduction levels, rotary pots for control of Threshold, Attack, Release and Ratio, and a pot for output level. The m502 also includes jumper settings on the board that provides the ability to configure the stereo linking and side-chain functionality based on the specific 500 series rack used.