ART Pro VLA II fiasco

[krizrox]

If you own an ART Pro VLA II compressor - especially a newer unit - you might want to test it to see if your unit has a channel leakage problem. I recently bought a brand new unit and as soon as I got it in the door I set it up for some preliminary testing just to make sure everything worked as expected. After about 10 minutes of testing I found a fatal flaw. The unit was leaking audio from channel 2 into channel 1. I found this by recording both channels into my DAW simultaneously and then running audio into both channels - but one channel at a time. I could hear low level channel 2 audio in the channel 1 track. Not the other way around. It's always from Ch 2 into Ch 1. I thought I had a defective unit so I got a new one. Same problem. I contacted ART (through their Yorkville parent company) and they pulled a unit from their own inventory and were able to confirm the problem. I gave them a week to respond back with a solution. No solution was forthcoming so I'm returning the second unit and washing my hands of ART products. Frankly there's nothing else in their product line that's of particular interest to me.

This unit got good reviews a year or two ago. I figured it was a no-brainer. ART claims no one has complained until now. Might be related to a recent design change or component changes. I don't know how many units might have gotten out into the world. I can imagine it might be easy to miss it if you're not paying attention.

Aside from that problem the unit seemed well-made. Sounded pretty good too. Clean with a sort of buttery tube tonality. Good bang for the buck considering it only costs $300. Too bad about the defect though.

[vvv]

Thanx for the heads-up. Mine is a cuppla years old, but I'll check for that.

FWIW, I only ever really use it as a mono compressor going in, and I especially like it on vocals with the stock Ruby tubes.

As I recall, there's not really any wires you can move around inside, neither ...

[floid]

hmm, mine does it too. stereo v. dual mono makes a difference - in stereo it's a slight amount of static, dual mono i can faintly hear program. as in, cranking the send all the way to get not much on the return. gotta say, tho, i don't see it stopping me from using it, being as how i rarely use it on two songs at once.

[jgimbel]

I'd bet a lot of folks are either using it as a mono compressor so they never heard it, or they're using it as a stereo compressor and the bleed isn't really shifting things enough to notice, or enough to be a problem for most people. I'd think it would be a bigger problem on a full mix than on something like a stereo acoustic guitar. I don't think I'd mind it much for one stereo instrument, but I wouldn't want it messing with the panning of a mix.

[krizrox]

I can see how this problem might have escaped attention - especially in a live situation. The guy I spoke with at ART hinted that it was related to the blend control on channel 2. I supposed they'll get around to fixing it but I didn't really want to wait for a solution that might be months away. I won't settle for such nonsense. I suspect this might be an isolated production/design issue - older models might not exhibit the problem. The bleed only measured -40db with a -10db input signal on Ch 2. And the bleed seemed to be up around 8Khz range.

My only other complaint is cosmetic - those orange VU meters are the ugliest shade of orange ever lol the two meters weren't even the same shade. One was brighter than the other. It just looked hokey to me lol

[vvv]

The pumpkin 'pressor, eh?

[kslight]

I'm suspecting most people within this device's target audience are simply not using it in a way that would cause this defect to be a problem. I'd be really surprised if it's a new problem, they've been making these for awhile...