Universal Audio 6176

The reason I bought this is because of the UAD DSP Bundle offer. This is a great deal that for circa. EUR2000, you got both and the UAD is a great tool for mixing. Regarding the 6176, this is certainly something enhance my gear list.

Build
USA made product with very good quality components. Great purple light that is cool to have.
Ease of use
It is not something that straight forward and the one whom to use this will need more exploration. Since it can be splitted for using the compressor alone. It tequires me to spend quite some time to play around and see how this could respond to the source. Dont expect ypu could get a sweet spot easily with this channel strip.

Sound quality
A classic warm tone with a very strong character. The pre amp section has various control to allow you to ger a variation of sound. The eq is mainly used for bring more flavourite to the sound source rather than to use it for correction. The compressor section can further enhance the amp sound to produce something more solid and flat. As mentioned before, it requires some practice to get a good sound.

Universal Audio's 6176, their flagship channelstrip won't let you down. The warmth, great EQ, and 1176Ln compressor nails your vocals, acoustics, everything. And this is the world's best DI for bass, IMHO. Universal Audio just has it. Great build quality and solid great masterpiece channelstrip. I can sincerely recommend 6176's to any professional, home and project studios to give that analog warmth to digital recordings. Although UAD's plugins are so close already at the moment (the last revisions), nothing can beat the thing that the knobs and switches and controls are on your fingertips. Remember to warm 6176 properly - give tubes at least a half an hour to warm and then you are ready to roll with the magnificent sound.
~H~

The Universal Audio 6176 is an amazing channel strip. Containing the warmth of the 610b preamp, with the legendary 1176 compressor in a single unit, which can be linked or used independently of each other.
The 610b would be characterised as a 'warm' tube pre, which is to say, it will colour your incoming signal slightly with that beautiful tube tone, should you increase the gain. There are 3 input options: Mic, Line or the 1/4" input on the faceplate to D.I guitars, etc. There is a functional, if limited, eq in the form of two 3-way switches, which give you, in increments of 1.5dB, + or - 9 dB at either 4.5kHz, 7kHz or 10kHz on the top and 70Hz, 100Hz or 200Hz on the bottom end.
Then we move on to the 1176. With this you can either bypass the compression, allowing the signal to simply pass through the circuitry, or use mild compression at a 4:1 ratio, 8:1, 12:1, 20:1 or the ridiculous 'All' mode, which simulates the trick devised by engineers with the original units, where the compressor would act erratically, yet very musically. This is great for drum over heads for a huge, pumping sound. Very effective for parallel compression! This is a high end unit with a serious reputation. Expensive, but worth every cent. That's why I have 2 ;)