All user reviews of 4/5 for the dbx 3BX DS

Product halfway between the HIFI (in connection RCA / phono) and SEMI-PRO. 1U with bracket
Officially, it is a 3-band compressor (200Hz-4KHz), but with a maximum compression ratio of 2/1 with 6 dB gain = max I rather situate in LEVELER option.
It can also be an expansion of dynamic
There are also two nice functions (in 3 bands please)
- IMPACT RECOVERY: Transient Designer kind of early. It is as if we were playing on the attack time (longer) to let transients (up to +10 dB). The nice thing is to have a 3-band BARGRAPH to view the current transients
- AMBIANCE: MS patch only on the central band (200 Hz to 4 KHz). Excellent to widen the stereo without losing the bass (as too often expanders MS)
Everything is in analog, with full VCA dbx!

UTILIZATION

Heyday it was one of the products easy to use (ideal for live sound), but with a sound that is still very correct.
• COMPRESSOR / EXPANDER: Super Simple setting = no attack or release, just a THRESHOLD and RATIO
• IMPACT RECOVERY = rate
• AMBIANCE = adjustment: decrease the difference M / S (over mono) to expand M / S (if more than stereo source is already ST) in a ratio of 1.5/0.5 LR Max

SOUND QUALITY

A bit dated now. It is more transparent since. (Certainly its condos chemical change)
The sound sounds very ANALOG (it does not rise to 40 KHz!), But much better and warmer than Single band compressor current low cost.

Ideal in a SUBGROUP of sound in VOICE or INSTRUMENT, can be used in global MIX (with sound LOFI).
Ideal for "pre-compress" sources LIVE highly dynamic. On this plan (thank you three band) I resumed LIVE to make them unplayable.

OVERALL OPINION

the 3BX-DS is the most successful of the series (DS Digital Series). The following model is an expander 4BX uninteresting.
So I found this great DBX-3BX I became convinced of the great superiority of multiband compression and looked to have the same thing better (because more recent) that I found with the Focusrite MIXMASTER.

For the sound sub-group, it remains surper and practice, but this product should be a bit hard to find now.