Rupert Neve Designs 517 Mic Pre / DI / Compressor with Vari-Phase (500 Series)

Rupert Neve Designs 517 Mic Pre / DI / Compressor with Vari-Phase (500 Series)

The 517 combines a mic preamp, a one-knob compressor and an instrument input with its own gain control in a single 500 Series module, together with Vari-Phase, Silk and a blend control between mic and instrument. The mic preamp covers line (0 dB) and mic gain from 0 to 66 dB in 6 dB steps; the front-panel instrument input has continuous gain from 0 to 30 dB and a passive THRU jack to the amplifier.

The BLEND control mixes the mic and instrument inputs, for example an acoustic guitar pickup with a microphone, and VARI-PHASE rotates the phase to align two signals from the same source. The opto-coupler (LDR) compressor uses a single threshold control with automatic make-up gain and a fixed 2:1 ratio, with an LED showing when it is active. Silk enhances harmonic content through the custom output transformer.

Key features

• Mic preamp 0-66 dB in 6 dB steps, +48 V, polarity
• Instrument input 0-30 dB with passive THRU
• Blend and Vari-Phase between mic and instrument
• Optical compressor, 2:1 ratio, threshold -20 to +10 dBu
• Silk circuit with custom output transformer
• 80 Hz high-pass filter

Specifications

• Equivalent input noise: better than -125 dBu
• Frequency response: -0.1 dB at 10 Hz, -1 dB at 120 kHz
• Maximum output level: +23 dBu (20 Hz - 40 kHz)
• Mic input impedance: 10 kohm; instrument input: 1.6 Mohm
• THD+N at 1 kHz, +20 dBu: better than 0.001%
• Power: 110-125 mA at ±16 V (from the 500 Series rack)
• 500 Series module: 3.8 x 15 x 13.3 cm (W x D x H)
• Weight: 0.7 kg