Empirical Labs Distressor EL8 X Single unit #19589

One of Empirical Labs' flagship units that brought the company to big leagues, the Distressor incorporates the sonic characteristics of the classic compressors, such as 1176, LA-2A and Gain Brain, and, of course adds a ton on extra features and harmonic enhancements.

The Distressor offers a warm, vintage sound by using a custom designed gain control circuit. As the Empirical Labs well noticed: "there probably was not a top 40 record made in the last five years that didn’t have at least one Distressor on it."

The classic Distressor offers a wide range of finctions:
- Unique Compression Curves: from 1:1 to the brick wall "Nuke" and a 10:1 "Opto" ratio.

- Distortion (Color) Modes: three modes that color the signal, even without compression

- An option to go streo and combine two Distressors.

The EL8-x offers two new operation modes:

- British Mode: have you ever pressed all the ratio buttons on a 1176? Thats what Britsh mode does. And you can apply this aggressive mode to any ratio.

- Image Link: the EL8-X now has three link options – the original “phase” link, the new Image Link and the combination of the two, phase and image linking

This unit was cleaned, seviced and tested by Retrosonic Pro Audio engineers and is in very good working condition. It works on 115/230 Volts, EU power cable is included.

US and EU parcels ship via UPS, ETA 1-7 working days from pickup day zero. That also applies to most locations worldwide.

All shipments are fully insured.

Bigger shipments requiring pallets or custom made crates ship to US, CA, JP, CN, AU and other outside of EU locations via DHL Air Freight, ETA is normally approx. 7-14 working days from pickup day zero.

Big shipments inside EU ship via different freight companies, recently mostly via ACE Logistics. Freight forwarders can use different courier companies for deliveries to final destinations.

Palletising and crating time can vary depending on the size of the shipment and packaging queue. We pack all our shipments with great care.

You are most welcome to pick your order up yourself from our Retrosonic Pro Audio showroom, studio and warehouse in Tallinn, Estonia.

We ship worldwide – contact us for a personal shipping quote or any other questions.

VAT (Value Added Tax) can be deducted if you have a company with a valid EU VAT number or if you're based outside of the EU. Non-EU buyers pay all and any import tax and duty as regulated by their local customs.