The Acoustic Guitar Forum - Audioscape ASA-6A (2024)

Audioscape came out with an RCA BA6A vari-mu compressor clone. I'm not at all familiar with the original. If anyone is, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

This unit is a beast and looks to be 4 or 5 rack units tall, it has NINE tubes and FIVE transformers (this unit should cut down on your heating bill in winter). I haven't seen a price announced yet but I expect it's going to be up there.

Marc Daniel Nelson got his hands on one and did a pretty cool video for it...

Well there is an original RCA BA6A on reverb for $25,000 so no problem :D https://reverb.com/p/rca-ba-6a-limiting-amplifier

Just checked the original Fairchild had some 20 tubes and 11 transformers. YIKES

And those tubes needed to be changed often. For some reason the Fairchild ate tubes for breakfast. After about a week of use they would get veiled & grainy.

Interesting. So will we be seeing Avid announce at NAMM, that their bundled Fairchild plugin will have a new "Veiled and Grainy" preset . I mean if we are emulating vintage hardware seems reasonable ... :D

lol [emoji23]

They should totally have a preset called: Old Tubes.

Though, in reality, they do. It’s a plugin called Lo-Fi. [emoji6]

Audioscape announced the price for the 9 tube ASA-6A. Owning one will set you back $2499. I honestly expected the price to be $500-$1000 higher. With the new Mac and an Iris on order, I'm not diving in on any hardware for the foreseeable future but I'll be looking forward to reviews for this one when the start popping up.
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/c...e=image%2Fjpeg

They also announced the AS78 which is their take on the UREI dual 1176 unit. That unit will set you back $1499.
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/c...e=image%2Fjpeg

If it's anything like the original, it will be sublime on guitars.

We have the Audioscape D-Comp (Neve style diode-bridge compressor) at the studio. I like it a lot. Well built.

I'm a fan of the Audioscape stuff but his ordering process leaves a bit to be desired as you have to wait to releases the few items he build on a run for sale. I guess it keeps his prices down but I lost out on a few piece because of this.

I have his Bluestripe 1176 compressor and it's a pretty good piece.

Email him and ask if he can send him an invoice when you're ready to buy something. That's how I've bought everything from AS. I've never done that mad scramble.

"Check" and "Heater" are copied from the vintage RCA BA6A. I don't know why it was printed there but I can't see how it changes anything about the compressor. I love that it's a simple setup and looks like it's probably very easy to dial in. I'd love to own one down the road but I know it's going to be a limited run and I'm not sure if the timing will work out for me. I've spent a truckload of cash in recent months and I have a few house things that need addressing. But if this is still get-able next summer... well, I'm weak.

If it's like the original, there's a "test" option for the VU to check the functioning of the tubes (if the needle is in "check" a tube is bad. And the "heater" is for the plate/heater voltage, effectively allowing the tubes to add gain.

I may be remembering wrong, but those selectors were on the inside in the original. The top flips open/down for access to fine controls & all the components for maintenance. It looks like some of those have been moved to the front panel on this re-imagining.

:up::up::up: thanks

That's cool. I had no idea. In the video, we get a glimpse of inside the box. All the way on the right side of the photo is a toggle switch. Do you know if a switch was present in that location on the original?

https://i.imgur.com/vsGQ8I4.jpg