Surface-Mount Magic in a Small FormatBy Miguel Marques
elysia established itself in 2006 with the launch of the alpha compressor, an all discrete hand-built stereo compressor. Made for mastering, it is one of the most expensive outboard compressors ever built. The German-based elysia quickly became known for its “no compromise” designs and build quality. It is also known for creating innovative solutions that fit the modern sound engineer’s needs due to their high versatility, creative functions, and overall excellent sound quality.
Since the launch of its flagship models - which also include a creative compressor called mpressor and a program equalizer called museq - elysia surprised the market with more affordable products by using surface-mounted technologies and machine construction instead of hand-built manufacturing.
Among them are the xpressor (a versatile true stereo compressor) and the nvelope (a stereo transient design with some clever bonus features). These two products still feature discrete components on the audio path and always run in Class A. This is in fact part of the elysia DNA. Using the company’s own words, “In Class-A amplifiers, the transistors are conductive all of the time, so there is no crossover distortion at all. This is
the perfect technological basis for an open sound with massive punch and no degradation of your original source.” Also, using discrete components makes it “possible to design every single stage in signal processing to do exactly what you want it to do - physics becomes the only limit.”
The xfilter 500 is an active true stereo equalizer in a 500-series module format (VPR Alliance certified). Like the xpressor 500 and nvelope 500, it fills two slots on an API lunchbox or 500-series compatible rack. As of publication, the xfilter is also available as a stand-alone 19” rack unit with the same features and functions so this review is valid for both xfilter 500 versions.
The xfilter 500 is a four-band semiparametric equalizer with the spectrum’s outer bands working as low- and high-shelf filters. Its two midbands are peak/dip filters with different switchable 0.5- and 0.1-Q factors. The equalizer’s outer bands can also work individually as high- and low-pass second-order filters. In this mode, the gain knob controls each filter’s resonance. Because the xfilter 500 is a true stereo equalizer, it only has one set of knobs to address the processing on both channels.
Read the full audioXpress review here.
