Incredibly Versatile 500 Series Opto
Inspired by the granddaddy of tube leveling amplifiers, Acme Audio’s Opticom XLA-3 has taken the pro audio world by storm. Now for our 500 Series devotees, Sweetwater is excited to present to you the Opticom XLA-500. Acme has meticulously shoehorned the XLA-3’s topology into a convenient 2-space module in your favorite format. The Opticom XLA-500 delivers the richly fat and warm sonic character you expect from a traditional tube optical limiter, along with impressive speed and versatility that will surprise (and delight) you.
Related Videos: Opticom XLA-500 Series Tube Optical Limiter
From clean to mean
The XLA-500’s forgiving handling of vocals and instruments makes it your reliable go-to for any source. But unlike opto compressors of yore, the XLA-500 is no one-trick pony. With tones on tap that range from clean and transparent to harmonically rich to saturated and dirty, and compression curves that range from slow and gentle to very fast and aggressive, the XLA-500 is incredibly versatile.
From gentle to aggressive
The XLA-500 has Normal, Fast, and Slow modes. In Slow mode, its traditionally gentle attack onset passes initial transients largely intact — key to the subtle transient enhancement and dynamics control you want from a conventional opto compressor. So yes — it does that. But the XLA-500 is so much more. Its proprietary triple optoelectronic circuit blends the most desirable characteristics of three different compression curves into a single unit. Combine that with a Class A gain stage and CineMag input and output transformers, and you have a high-speed optical limiter that can approximate the performance of FET designs.
Easy to get great-sounding results
The Opticom XLA-500 is certainly one of the most versatile 500 Series optical limiters we’ve seen. Whether your goal is to gently control the dynamic range of a vocal, add thickness and weight to a bass guitar, or mercilessly crush a drum track, you can effortlessly achieve it all with the XLA-500, producing a wide range of great-sounding, nonlinear dynamic effects to suit any musical setting.
Acme Audio Opticom XLA-500 Tube Optical Limiter Features:
- Normal, Fast, and Slow modes
- Impressive tonal versatility
- The most desirable characteristics of 3 different compression curves in a single unit
- Triple optoelectronic circuit
- Class A gain stage
- CineMag input and output transformers
