 George
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dbx 160S Review -
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The dbx
160 was standard equipment in any studio worth its salt when I
started in the business. Not for the faint-hearted, I always
suspected that this half-rack, 2U machine was compressing far more
than the meter indicated.
If you really
wanted savage compression then this black box was the one to do the
business. Other variations with more features such as the 165A came
along, and these were popular but less common than the standard 160
with its fixed auto attack and release settings. In the early
eighties came the 160X, a 1U, LED-packed box, still black and still
fairly brutal, but a little bit smoother sounding than its
predecessor. And even smoother in "OverEasy(R)" mode,
which is the registered dbx name for soft knee compression. There
must be thousands of these superb units in studios and live racks
around the world, and a budget version (the 160XT) built in Hong
Kong has continued to sell well.
Buy a DBX 160 in our studio shop
Now in the late
1990s dbx has felt the heat from such upstarts as Focusrite. To
reclaim the high-ground in the signal processing market they have
introduced the Blue range. The centrepiece is this very imposing
unit, named the 160S to denote its heritage.. This is truly a
"Rolls Royce" model: everything about the build of it is
completely uncompromised: the beautifully finished blue metallic
front panel is 1/4" thick. The wonderfully smooth solid
aluminium knobs are hand-crafted, and look remarkably similar to
those used by Focusrite on their Red series. They are larger and
more damped than the Focusrite ones, making small adjustments
easier.
Pushbuttons are
also aluminium and have a positive feel when pushed, unlike the
flimsy plastic Focusrite illuminating type which sometimes give up
the ghost and stop latching. The front panel looks slightly
cluttered compared to the competition, and is truly feature-packed.
The brightly backlit VU level meters are custom made, with unusually
the Gain Reduction mode using a different scale, with linear rather
than VU characteristics. All the LEDs have smart chrome surrounds,
and are in a variety of colours. On the back, gold-plated Neutrik
XLR connectors are used for inputs, outputs and sidechain
connections for both channels.
There are a large
assortment of unbalancing and grounding buttons and connections, so
you are not going to have any hum problems with this unit. There is
a panel where an optional digital in/out board can be fitted. The
box weighs over a stone and is rugged, yet beautifully finished. You
really get what you pay for here, for although expensive, the 160S
really looks like it will take any knocks and last a lifetime.
It does beg the
question, who needs build strength like this? I cannot see many
situations where you would take a machine as expensive as this on
tour - perhaps a few elite rock stars' live engineers might use a
couple, but it is a difficult to justify such extravagance for most
people.
In a studio
situation it's true that cheap knobs break or wear out, but I don't
remember ever having a problem with a front panel not being thick
enough. It seems that they are just trying to keep up with the
Jones's, i.e. Focusrite!
PeakStop(R) and PeakStopPlus(TM) are both offered. These are two
different types of limiting, the former based on that introduced on
the 165A, and the latest version which monitors the input to predict
what it needs to do to keep the level below the threshold set with
the Stop knob.
Each channel has a button and LED for external sidechain insertion,
and Stereo Couple links the two channels, killing all controls on
channel 2.
The first signal I
plugged in was a bass guitar, always great with a 160X and good with
the old 160 if you were careful not to overdo it. If you did, you
ended up with a farty overloaded noise. In Auto mode the 160S
sounded closer to a 160 than a 160X, with a similar tendency to
fart. However in Manual mode it was easy to set appropriate Attack
and Release times and immediately had a wonderful punchy compressed
bass. Switch into OverEasy(R) mode and the compression is very
smooth, doing everything you want. On drum ambience, it worked a
treat. As with the old 160, 2:1 compression seems much more savage
than you would expect, even in soft knee OverEasy(R) mode. This is a
machine for people who like a lot of compression. I found myself
setting the ratio to 2:1 or 1.5:1 in many situations. (Wimp! I hear
you say!) The audio specification is quite astonishing and boasts a
VCA with a dynamic range of 127dB.
The ring-binder
manual is great, explaining all the principles and operation
thoroughly. It really does sound as good as it looks: there is
little that dbx haven't thought of with this model. I loved it.
Buy Aphex and other recording equipment in the music studio shop
Reproduced
with kind permission from www.George.Shilling.Com. Copyright ©1997
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