I finally get it. I finally understand why some people look at cars and fall in love with it’s looks, have pictures up on their wall and dream about owning one. Yesterday I caught a glimpse of the new Bettermaker Darthlimiter. I fell in love with it just based on how it looked. I know how it sounds, it’s incredible. I have used one on many occasions. But that was the standard silver face. This is the Darthlimiter version which looks a million times better. Only 200 have been made and we at Audio Animals and pleased to be 6th on the list to get our hands on one. I actually can’t wait for it to arrive. I find myself looking at pictures of it. Is it just me or is this not the sleekest most exceptional looking piece of studio equipment you have ever seen. Maybe it’s just me?
Exclusive limited edition celebrating 1000th Mastering Limiter. Only 200 pieces available Worldwide
When you need premium sound quality limiting and convenience of fast and precise recall and automation.
Bettermaker Darthlimiter offers, 100% analog signal path, plugin recall and automation within your project, frequency dependent saturation, MS processing, enhanced metering section and a large LED touchscreen minimising clutter on your main studio screen.
Get analog mastering sound quality results, fast and spare your recall time.
DARTHLIMITER
Whats New?
- limited front panel with black frame and knobs
- new capacitive touchscreen with improved contrast and viewing angle
- improved audio path for lower noise and better dynamic range (Burr-Brown(TM) OPA1656 in audio path)
The sound of the limiter is of course based on the quality of its hardware design. But all the control and user interactions are performed in the digital domain. This allows us to incorporate options and possibilities not found in any standard analog limiter:
- Save and recall presets
- Instant reset of all parameters
- Rapid, precise and repeatable adjustments
- Precisely linked stereo operation with the ease of a single control
- DAW automation
- Comprehensive metering operations based on high quality A/D conversion and DSP
Great care and thought went into the development and implementation of the analog section of the Bettermaker Darthlimiter. High quality capacitors and low noise op-amps are used in the analog path. Relays were used, whenever creating the shortest path for the audio signal was necessary.
All these modules are controlled by the digital section of the Bettermaker Darthlimiter, so no mechanical switches or knobs are required to adjust any of the parameters.
Digital Section
The digital section of the Bettermaker Darthlimiter is based around two high speed, 32- bit micro-controllers, with dedicated firmware programmed into their memory (with the possibility of updating the firmware via USB connection). One of them is responsible for controlling the VCA limiter, when the other watches over the user interface, presets management, audio measurement, USB connectivity and other Bettermaker Darthlimiter functions.
The use of separate ground planes for analog and digital section results in perfect noise isolation between these two worlds. The linear power supply was used instead the switching one to improve the sonic qualities even further.
The front panel of the Bettermaker Darthlimiter is build around big LCD touchscreen, that allows you to control almost all functions available in the device. Apart from that, you can also monitor input/output levels, amount of gain reduction (and clipping) applied by the limiter, perform advanced measurements (FFT, LUFS, K-metering), use on-screen QWERTY keyboard for naming your presets and more. You can even display fully configurable, analog style VU meters!
Main Features
Bettermaker Darthlimiter has 3 functionalities that are essential to make a perfect master. All of them are recallable by the internal memory and a plugin that also handles automation.
- 100% analog signal path
- intelligent and manual release
- variable mix between limiting and clipping
- possibility to turn off the clipping section, so you can clip with you favourite AD or other.
- Two colour modules introducing different saturation that can be used simultaneously
- Colour 1 with Majority of odd harmonics
- Colour 2 with Majority of even harmonics
- Both colour sections can be internally EQed so for example you can present more odd harmonics in the low end to give the mix more bite and sweeten the highs with the even harmonics at the top end.
Metering
Metering, an additional screen in your studio. As it’s a touchscreen it also utilises control functions of the Bettermaker Darthlimiter. You can view your favourite set of stats.
- Input, output and reduction
- Analog style meters (VU, PPM, RMS, Peak with peak hold functionality)
- LUFS (Short term, Integral, Loudness Range, view in time)
- K metering
- 30 Band FFT analyser
- Goniometer
- Correlation meter
- Two points of measurement, the output of the Limiter or the plugin
- and more…
Technical Specification
Maximum input level: +21,5 dBu (balanced)
Maximum output level: +23 dBu (THD < 0.1%)
Operating Level: +4dBu
Maximum gain reduction: 20 dB
Makeup gain: automatic
Attack time: 0.1 – 250ms
Release time: 0.01 – 1.3s + IREL (intelligent release)
Input impedance (differential): 48kΩ (for balanced signal)
Output Impedance: 50Ω + 50Ω (electronically balanced)
Frequency response 5Hz to 30kHz; +/- 0.1dB
Dynamic range: 107 dB @ +21 dBu, 20 kHz BW
THD+N: %lt;0.03%, +4 dBu, unity gain, 20 kHz BW
CMRR: max 80 dB @ 3 kHz, min 55 dB @ 50Hz, 20 kHz BW
Crosstalk: min -90 dB @ 1KHz, max -57 dB @ 30Hz, +18 dBu, 20 kHz BW
Maximum power consumption: 30W (uses 630mA slow blow fuse)
Shipping weight: 5.5 kg
