I thought I'd throw this out there after reading every 1176 post on GS over the past 25 years. I grew up w/ the original UREI's. I've owned RI's, Purple's, etc. Went from ITB to hybrid, and now incorporating more outboard the past decade. Going backwards. I was ITB/hybrid when no one knew what that meant in the late 90's/ early OO's! I finally said screw it. Bought a UREI 1176F, UA 1176LN RI (early one from 2000 w/ the "Magic"..... someone actually wrote that on the top of the enclosure; you guys can be the judge if they're correct), in addition to the Audioscape 76F that I purchased last year. I'm not a social media/YouTube guy, so I thought I'd post in my GS wheelhouse. Completely unbiased shootout. All 76's set on slowest attack, fastest release @ 4:1. That's where I've always started (and likely stayed) in all my years I did my best to keep the compression the same between the units. Obviously the UA is modeled after a REV D/E, but did my best to keep it in the same ballpark.

The UREI came in with a blown power section cap, so I had to wait until I ordered a replacement. I installed it tonight to record the forthcoming, "Battle Royale". I used the usual suspects for the shootout. Kick, Snare, Bass and Vocals. I didn't do the UAD plug-in's (may be should have??). I like those too. Maybe at a later date....

I sincerely had a really hard time finding any decent comparisons on all of YouTube, GS, blah, blah, blah.... I'm hoping that these files may help other idiots like me to make a sound decision on what to spend their $$ on. Audioscape is sub $1000, UA RI is usually sub 2k (used), and a UREI 76F is in the 4k ballpark. You guys be the judge of what an extra 5-10% (?????) is worth..... if you think there is even a difference!

I was considering a blind shootout, but I'll just throw these up. I'm actually curious to see other people's opinions. Kick, Snare and Bass are all metering around 3-7dB compression. Vocals are compressing from -3dB to -20dB at the peaks. I did my best to level match. These are pretty damn close on my output meters. This isa pretty realistic compression comparison of what I'd use in a mix, but YMMV.... I had to down sample a few of the files to 16 bit because the originals were too large.....

This is super cool! Thanks so much for taking the time to put this together, very excited to listen!

Thanks so much for this! I appreciate the effort. Was curious about this myself and most comparisons online are less than stellar.

And yeah, glad you didn't do a blind shootout - A-B testing does not relate to how we listen as we work at all.