Black Lion Audio Seventeen 500 Series Compressor

"It’s not your grandpa’s ‘76." Black Lion didn’t sacrifice one ounce of tone when they shrunk down their classic Seventeen compressor to fit into the portable 500-series format. Seventeen, for those who don’t already know, is Black Lion’s unique take on what the classic ‘76 limiting amplifier could have been with the benefit of today’s tech. It’s not your grandpa’s ‘76. Seventeen 500 delivers profound detail and nuance never before heard with a ‘76-style compressor. And you even get some features not even available on the originals, including wet/dry mix control, a stereo-link option, and a frequency-adjustable sidechain high-pass filter.

What makes Seventeen 500 different?First, Seventeen 500 features a new IC-based front-end circuit not found in classic ‘76 compressors. It provides a clean, punchy, modern sound under light compression and a more colorful vintage character when pushed. That front-end, when coupled with our custom-designed, made-in-Chicago output transformer, is why Seventeen delivers a huge bottom end that balances out its open top end very nicely. All told, Seventeen 500 is capable of delivering a broader tonal palette than original ‘76s.

Seventeen 500 features BLA’s proprietary Black Lion-style power decoupling for an incredibly low noise floor. It also uses high-grade Nichicon signal capacitors, widely considered some of the highest quality caps available, reducing the noise floor even further. Black Lion could have stopped there… but why? You also get a wet/dry mix knob for parallel compression straight out of the box. Beyond offering a palette of tones not available to anything else on the market, Seventeen 500 also includes the all-important stereo link function. Last but not least—yes, it does “all-buttons-in” mode, and we’ve made it much easier to engage multiple ratio controls simultaneously than on classic models.

at a glance • 500-series version of Black Lion Audio’s take on the classic ’76 FET compressor/limiter
• Clean, punchy, modern sound under light compression
• Colourful vintage character when pushed
• Proprietary power decoupling for an impressively low noise floor
• Employs high-grade Nichicon signal capacitors
• Frequency-adjustable sidechain high-pass filter
• Wet/Dry mix knob allows for parallel compression not available on vintage rackmount units
• Stereo-linkable