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Daking unveils the FET3 Stereo Compressor

Friday July 17, 2009. 10:47 AM, by Nantho

The Daking FET3 is new dual channel limiter from Geoff Daking, built in the US with the same audio path and detector circuits as the single channel Daking FET II limiter. The FET3 compressor circuitry and gain stages are all discrete and fully Class "A" with sound quality that will be at the very top of the scale. The single channel FET II was known for its speed, high performance and its unique ability to sound great on an extraordinary variety of sources. The FET3 will equal this benchmark plus add several unique features to improve user control. The differences are as follows :

• New variable High Pass Filters from 0 to 200Hz are added to the detector stage of each limiter channel to improve and customize limiter behavior. The HPF's tell the limiter NOT to trigger limiting based on content below the set HPF frequency. This is extremely helpful on bass heavy material. This greatly widens the units potential application set and the ability of the user to set this new behavior "on the fly".

• Variable linking between channels is envisioned for use when compressing two different tracks, such as bass and kick, to tie limiter action together to greater or lesser degrees. The Stereo Link is continuously variable from 0 to ∞.

• All controls except "Ratio" are pots. The new variable pots add the ability to fine tune behaviors in the studio. Mastering engineers may prefer the repeatability of switches, such as those on the FET II, which will continue in the Daking product line.

• The FET II's relied on control voltage summing for the stereo linking. Because the FET3 is two independent units in one box, it uses audio summing, which is much more accurate.

• The Daking FET3 uses THAT CORP differential amps in and out (electronically balanced). The FET II has transformers in and out but they are 1:1 input to output so they do not "color" the sound. (A mic input transformer at 1:10 ratio in a mic pre would color the sound significantly.) The common mode rejection in FET3 is equal to that of FET II. The FET3 output level is +24 while the FET II can be as high as +30.

• The FET3 and FET II both use an outboard power supply. The FET3 2 RU case provides a small pocket in the back panel to store this external power supply.

Daking should be ready to ship first units in early August. The FET3 is expected to have an MSRP of $2200 (street price around $1950).