‌DETAILS The MANLEY VARIABLE MU® LIMITER COMPRESSOR has been our best selling product for many years. It is one of the very few compressors that has become a real standard in Mastering studios and contributed to most hit records over the last decade and probably the next. "Mu" is tube-speak for gain, and Variable Mu® is our registered trademark for this limiter compressor. It works by using the "remote cut-off" or re-biasing of a vacuum tube to achieve compression. The precious vintage Fairchild 670 also uses this technique and is one of few all-tube compressor to do so, that we know of. Even the side-chain has glowing rectifier bottles. How’s it work? The unique 5670 dual triode is at the center of the peak-reducing and compression action constantly being re-biased by the vacuum tube rectified side-chain control voltages which cause this tube to smoothly change its gain. Just like that.

The COMPRESS mode is soft-knee 1.5 to 1 ratio while the sharper knee LIMIT mode starts at 4 to 1 and moves to a more dramatic ratio of 20 to 1 when limiting over 12dB. Interestingly, the knee actually softens as more limiting is used. Distortion can be creatively used by turning up the Input and turning down the Output while using very little or no compression. See the gain reduction curves here!

You might notice that the Variable Mu® Limiter Compressor has a ganged input control, but do not jump to conclusions that it is mono-unfriendly. Track away! There are separate threshold and output controls to make compensations with plus you can always adjust your individual source levels elsewhere, right? The advantage of the stereo input control becomes dramatically clear when you switch to LINK mode, and that’s what our Variable Mu® Limiter Compressor does better than anything else: final mix, 2-track, or mastering limiting and compression. Like one reviewer put it: “It’s like pouring a bowl of sweet cream over the mix.” Mmmmmm. Yummy. Give your music a big hug.

SPECIFICATIONS MANLEY input & output transformers with nickel laminations in mu-metal cases with flat frequency response from 20Hz-25KHz BALANCED INPUTS & OUTPUTS (600 Ohms) Fully differential ALL-TUBE circuitry Variable Gain vacuum tube: 5670 x2 Standard or 6BA6 x4 T-BAR Mod Amplifying vacuum tubes: 5751 or 12AX7 x2  Output vacuum tubes: 12BH7 x2 current production since 4/2016  Output vacuum tubes: prior to MSLC94006 use 7044 or 5687 x2 Side Chain Rectifier Diodes: 12AL5 x2 Independently regulated B+ and Heater supplies Hard-wire BYPASS switch Stepped switch INPUT attenuator as of 10/2011. (older units use Silent dual-ganged potentiometer) RECOVERY 5 steps: 0.2s, 0.4s, 0.6s, 4sec., 8sec.

Variable ATTACK: 25msec-70msec Continuously variable THRESHOLD LIMIT (4:1 to 20:1) or COMPRESS (1.5 to 1) HP SC: High Pass Side Chain Filter -3dB @ 100Hz Large ILLUMINATED Sifam METERS (older units before serial number MSLC61642 shipped before 12/2003 use: 26V 1.2W FESTOON LAMPS; Manley's Part Number: VAR016B) Order spare bulbs using our parts order form. (newest units after serial number MSLC61642 shipped after 12/2003 use white LED lighting) STEREO LINK SWITCH Several units can be linked for Surround (custom order ) Maximum gain: 35dB Max. output: +30dBu (26Vrms) 26dB Headroom