Out Of The Box:
Heavy metal. Firm knobs. Stiff clunky switches. Reassuring. It's physical presence is every bit as imposing as the pictures suggest. Very, very solid build and feel. Top marks.

As a valve unit it heats up in use, but with a 1U gap left between it and the next unit up (Metric Halo ULN2-2d) in a spacious rack array, there were no concerns with heat or ventilation at all. Valves are outside the box but protected by quick release caps. Once you get the hang of these protectors valve change is a cinch - just twist and go. Don’t forget to buy spares. £1 will buy you some cable ties to keep the patch leads safely away from any hot bits.

I mounted it in a 4U Gator shockmount composite rack case and this appeared to be sufficient protection for a small mobile recording rig. I wouldn’t trust this set up for international travel but the Powerstrip box is tough. You get the sense this could easily go on the road with the right protection.

Pre:
Over a 7 day period, I used this on mainly vocals, acoustic and electric guitar. It has firstly, a huge beautiful quality and versatility. I bumped this up a bit further by running through the ULN2 pre to the Powerstrip via send and return. This gave me some flexibility on the gain staging. It does clean(-ish). It does colourful. It does every shade in between. You are getting a big, full frequency sound for your money. Whatever mics you have at your disposal (not many in my case), it will get the absolute best out of them.

Don’t discount the ‘soft’ mode. It can help to soften things, worked very well on a 'feathery' type guitar part.

EQ:
Amazing. Here on GS there are played out tropes that 'warm' means dull and muddy, that 'clarity' equals harsh and brittle-sounding. I agree with all of them. One man's meat is another's poison. Well here you get all of it with, in my opinion, none of the negative artifacts.

A bass boost brings up a fantastic depth and body to sounds without flab or woof. My acoustic often records very boomy and low middy, but here I can dial in the perfect amount of low end to sit in the track. Between the boost and attentuation at 60hz I can get it sounding fat and reined in at the same time.

Next the mids. Well take your pick here, everything sounds awesome and musical. There was a lot of taping and listening back. My guitar has never sounded so full, yet balanced too.

Top end. On first runs I was noticing a fair amount of hiss. This was pilot error. I like hiss. It can really add to the overall atmospherics, but with the PS i can now dial in exactly the right amount. And it’s nice tapey hi fi hiss too. Attenuate hard at 20k you’re cutting 80% of hiss at a stroke. At 10k you lop the tops right off. Your choice. If the gain is set correctly there are no noise problems of note

You can apply this approach to any sound source. I taped a washing machine on spin cycle because i was bored. I got a pretty good sound out of it - the low end thrumming machine drone, the whiny accelerating mid-range and the dialed in tops

Compressor:
Reviewers have mentioned the unusual design of the compressor, it's lack of discrete input control. It's very, very good. You need to keep your eye on it but, once you get into the mentality that you often just want to kiss it at 1-2db, then if you throw out an unexpected peak it'll grab it at 5-7db max. It's quick, well-rounded, transparent at these settings. The nuances come through and you're left with musical performances, nil discernible compression and great sounding tracks. Bear in mind that the EQ settings will have a profound effect on the compressor input. Sometimes you go back to the gain-staging after you've set the EQ so as to get the best out of the compressor, which feels unusual but you get used to it quick.

Ok, enough of the tasteful stuff. I dug in hard with a bassy acoustic riff, maxxed out the gain reduction at 20-25db and got a lovely bloomy expansive squish. It won't replace any of your revered compressors, but this is a very interesting flavour as an effect. I can only anticipate that putting loops through this and taking the same approach in the treble or mids would bring equally fun results.

Conclusion:
I’m a singer-songwriter not an AE guy. I don’t have tons of gear. I needed to complement the ultra clean MH amps on input with some valves and trannies and that’s exactly what the Powerstrip delivers – musical sounds of whatever shade or stripe you want. In a session, we all know that there are enough things to worry about without having to fight to get the sounds down. This box has taken that element of worry away for me.


FAQ:
Does it sound expensive? Yes ma'am.
Will it make my song better? No.
Will it stop me jonesing for a 176? Ha ha. Hmmm... I think you need one of these first.

Bogeyeater says:
Buy with confidence!