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Symetrix 422 AGC any good?

S

satech

I am in need of a stereo AGC box. Of course, the Ariane is the Rolls Royce of this field, but needless to say it's way beyond my budget. I'd love a CRL SPP-800, but I can never find them anymore. A Compellor is then the natural choice, but I noticed I can get a Symetrix 422 for about a third of the price. Is it a decent alternative? Maybe it says something that the Symetrix was discontinued while the Compellor is still in production, but you never know.
 
I had a 422 for a campus station's airchain and I have a 421 at a cable television's headend that I have first hand experience with. While they are OK I have noticed some odd behavior at times. I also had one personally that I sold for a steal of a deal as I just wanted to get rid of it.

Do you need to buy a unit new? I've seen Compellors on ebay go between $200 and $300 if you have the budget.
 
Well,i can vouch for the Ariane,but i would get a compellor instead of the 422.It gets quirky sometimes.IMO,the best thing symetrix ever had was the 528.I have seen the CRL listed on Ebay before,if you can snatch one of those go for it,fine unit.
 
Ditto on the other comments. I have one feeding a local cable channel and another on the output of a Chapel audio broadcast feed; both are very audible and sometimes squirrely in their behavior. Hold out for an Ebay Compellor and you'll be much happier IMO.
-D
 
As with most Symetrix gear, it isn't super-zippy, bells & whistly. But it does get the job done. A Compellor, as its name suggests, probably does present a more "compelling" audio argument.
 
Some of you may have read my posts in the past regarding this piece of equipment. I use one in a bar for controlling jukebox audio levels. With the 422 off, levels are drastically all over the place. I used to have a Behringer Ultra Dyne DSP9024 multiband compressor/limiter follow the 422, but it had failed at some point, which left me temporarily just with the 422. As I had never run the system without the DSP9024, I wasn't sure how much each piece of equipment was working or adding, and what the system would sound like using only the 422. But standing all by itself, the 422 does a very decent job for this application. I acquired a Compellor at a later date, but haven't replaced the 422 with it yet. This bar has a great sound system (which I designed), and cranks to incredible levels, with tons of headroom. Saying that, I think the 422 does a fantastic job of handling jukebox sound files that are all over the place. And the great thing is, I pretty much can't hear it working. I had planned to install a Aphex Dominator after the 422, but I haven't gotten around to that yet. As CE for many radio stations over the years, I really wish I had discovered the 422 a longtime ago. If I had, it probably would have been placed in every Production Studio I maintained or designed. I'm not sure what it retailed for at the time, but I'm betting it was cheaper than the Aphex Compellor.
 
Brian Bowers said:
Behringer Ultra Dyne DSP9024 multiband compressor/limiter
Click to expand...
This piece was a great idea but I could never make it sound acceptable, much less great. Biggest problem was that no matter how fast you set the attack time, it was still far too sloppy and let large peaks through. Using it's built in peak limiter was comical as the terrible peak control in the compression section reacted pretty violently with the limiter. This thing did you a favor when it failed. Add my name to the 'look for a used Compellor' list.
 
BobOnTheJob said:
Brian Bowers said:
Behringer Ultra Dyne DSP9024 multiband compressor/limiter
Click to expand...
This piece was a great idea but I could never make it sound acceptable, much less great. Biggest problem was that no matter how fast you set the attack time, it was still far too sloppy and let large peaks through. Using it's built in peak limiter was comical as the terrible peak control in the compression section reacted pretty violently with the limiter. This thing did you a favor when it failed. Add my name to the 'look for a used Compellor' list.
Click to expand...

The limiter on the 9024 is useless. I have one for play with an ART VLA going into the 9024 with the limiter bypassed (don't really need it) and it seems to work well for playing trashy 70's pop music for that old school "Top 40" big sound of the day. Another issue with the 9024 is the AD/DA conversion doesn't like mp3s so everything comes out shredded. But as long as you use wav files or play CD's through it all is well.
 
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