I’m sure there’s a thread around this but I couldn’t find it. I’m looking at getting some higher end channel strips, and wondered if the 500 series units would be a preferred way to go. Use case my own hobby studio but I really want the sound as good as I can make it. Looking at channel strips from $2000-5000, would probably spend $10000 once all is said. Main use, guitars, classic sounds, bass mic and direct and female vocals, mid range, sort of Chrissy Hynde tones.
I’m not really looking for patch ability but more set for one use. Sounds silly I’m sure but that’s how I work.
Thanks for opinions.

Yes they do.
No they don't.

And everything in-between depending on compromises that may have been required to fit the form factor, current limits and current capability of the rack itself which vary a lot from unit to unit.

Two case studies, to @ Scragend 's point.

The A-Designs Pacifica preamp sounds diffferent than the "same flavor" 500 series P1. Why? Because the transformer used in the Pacifica would not fit.

IGS makes some nice 1176-type FET limiters. Their Volfram rackmount stereo unit is very pleasant to operate, due to its beautifully old-school meters and easily recallable stepped knobs. I like mine very much but, if you open it up, you'll find two of the very same circuit boards used in the corresponding 500-series product.

In most cases, no. In some cases, yes.

It really depends on the original design. Power supply voltages and transformer sizes really play into sonic differences.

Caps and surface mount resistors can play into it as well. But something that is well designed can deal with this, maybe even better if.

If something is a new design and designed for the space and power requirements of a 500 rack. A product like this should be the same with no issues.

Not all 500 series units have "full size counterparts". The Avedis MA5 come to mind. The entire API 500 series were the originators of the format and their 19" units like the 3124+ came much later.

No.

To add another vague response, they can.

To answer the question with an example, I have yet to see anyone argue that the API 550B sounds different than one side of the API 5500 ... discarding the 550M feature of 1/2 DB increments and decrements in the 5500.

Not every company is API - which is in a nutshell why I have a large part of their catalog and almost everything else is off my radar.

Thanks. I know its weird so say flexibility isnt the goal but I'll leave things set up 99% of the time. I was going to look at a Manley VoxBox but its somewhat divisive at least on the compressor for what it costs. I was hoping to buy it as a great vocal solution, and maybe have 2 different strips for guitar cabs and 2 for bass direct and mic'd.
My current stuff is pro-sumer level, mostly warm audio and audioscape, which I like.

So are we now talking about channel strips? Lots of good options out there, each with their own quirks and limitations. Cramming a good compressor in with everything else has often been a challenge for designers, and the compressor you get might not be the one you ultimately want. Maybe you got an optical limiter, but a FET type is what really floats your boat. Maybe what fit in the box was a diode limiter, but you don't really like that sound. That's the real advantage of 500-series stuff: the ability to mix, match, and change your mind until you find exactly what works for you. I built one 500-series strip with a fully balanced discrete mic preamp, an inductor-type EQ, and a modern VCA-type compressor. You'd be hard-pressed to find that combo in an off-the-shelf channel strip.

There are some very nice channel strips out there but dropping $10k on different flavors seems pretty extravagant for a "hobby studio". How's your mic locker?

Well there are modules that only exist in 500 series and if I was to focus on one compressor module for guitar and vocals in a "set and forget" environment where mojo is the main requirement and lots of features are not ...

API 525 all the way. Doesn't get much simpler or sound better imho.

The thing is in 500 series you can build a channel strip to your hearts content and I would put not only an API 550a in that chain but also an API 565 to remove some frequencies - in both vocals and guitars almost always.

Preamps I tend to go a little differently but I have a lot of line level uses so the quirky Sound Devices usbpre 2 is something I have three of which is very clean i.e. they are not mojo devices but with a focus on very low noise.

You're dead right David, but a snippet from the OPs original text "sort of Chrissy Hynde tones" and your hint at spending money on the source reminds me of an interview I saw with Chrissy Hynde where for her (2014?) solo album she was capturing vocals on her iPhone and sending them to her producers - vocals that made it to the actual release! You can get away with murder these days if whatever it is suits the vibe of the track - the sound quality and noise floor of someone singing into their iPhone probably technically surpasses a lot of 1950s recordings! A piece of me dies every time someone gives me an MP3 to include in a track and insists I use it. That's the modern world I guess!

I get that “expensive for a hobby” comment a lot, but I put
It like a boat. Nothing is more useless and ridiculous in my eyes. What? Are you a fisherman? Why would anyone own a $100000 boat?
Because they can and they have fun with it. Same with me and my studio. Because I enjoy it. No other reason.

Fair enough, but what I find fun about having my own studio is getting the best sounds I can and having the time to do that without watching the clock. I don't know what your mic locker looks like; I was merely speculating that improving it might be higher leverage than several pieces of broadly equivalent outboard. It's become kind a cliche' here on GS that project studio folks obsess about the "best" mic preamp when that's really 5% of the sound they're getting and 95% is coming from sound source, microphone, mic placement, and acoustics. We're quite happy to help spend $10k of someone else's money, but we feel some responsibility towards helping them get a high sonic return for it.

David

Mics I have are Bock 187, Warm C12 type, SM7B, AT 4033 and 4050, RE20, some cheap Sterling condensers and ribbons, SM57s and E906's. For drums its D112, Sennheiser clip on tom mics and some warm 414 type overheads which really sound how I wanted. Maybe a few others like $300-500 condensers I can't recall. Some p170 SDCs.

That's a nice mic locker for a home studio. The main thing I'd be inclined to add would be a great pair of SDC's.

Maybe you should be more specific about the particular things you'd like to accomplish sonically that your existing setup isn't helping with. The responses you'll get are likely to be a lot more useful than if we start free-associating about every channels strip we've ever used for anything.

David

Me thinks almost no one heard what Chrissy Hynde sounded like in 2014 and "sort of Chrissy Hynde tones" means something like Pretenders "brass in my pocket" from 1979.

While you may be able to get away with a lot, you can say the same about fast food nutrition but it is not necessarily a good idea.

I like the boat analogy too and I would go one step further with high priced cars that I also think is not my cup of tea but API gear just for the hell of it - you bet.

The OP seems intent on doing better with outboard and why not with those mics.

well, the thethrillfactor's response wasn't "vague" at all

(Just didn't feel like typing out a response to something which was asked before in a different thread).

On the whole, there is more space in a 19" design to do more with better components. However, the 500 format can sound great and is flexible for some space constrained set-ups like mine in ways that 19 could never be. The 19" stuff can spec out a little better or sound better than a 500 series analog a fair bit of the time. Is it enough to matter.

Well, once upon a time everything I had was 19", but now it's mostly 500 plus a few desktop preamps, and I'm more than happy with all the combinations I can put together and sounds I can get in my limited space.

And then there's the other end of the scale - check out the internals of the 2U Klark Teknek BBD-320, a massive empty box with a guitar pedal's worth of components inside!
I'm so tempted to chuck the components from my BBD-320 into a little project box and then use the nice big 2U case for a larger scale project! I'm also considering taking a bunch of Evil-B pedals and making a single chain able FX box out of it.
Imagine a BBD-320 case with the 320 still in there, plus a bi-phase, a pair of 646 spring reverbs, a pair of OD-1s and perhaps a Mojo Maestro. Sotty about the OT - just excited myself thinking a big empty project box!

Many passive summing boxes are similarly practically empty but at least you have the excuse that you need space for lots of I/O which could be over a single panel mounted DB25 on a 500 module.

As others said, it depends which one. But for those i could compare, 500 serie sounded thinner, missing a bit on the low/low Med.
You can't really expect a little module to sound as good as a rack where manufacturers did build everything with coherency. Especially in 500, it also depends the box you put them into. Power supply has an impact on a whole circuitry, and it's the first point manufacturers must master to build quality. Not only electrically but also about isolation, shielding etc. Power supply must provide good and regular current, not bringing noise or thd etc. 500 boxes dont give much electrical power, once again it also depends which one.

Check the price of a module and its rack counterpart... The différence is huge, i let you guess why. Its not only about more components or bigger box, it's also because it's more work, more calibration, better quality etc. It's a whole thing, lot more serious, perfect finnishing.

All those reasons made me avoid 500 format. It's lazyness from manufacturers and a way to sell quantity to much more people because it seems more affordable (strong marketing hype to sell that to consumer as if it was as good). Not saying 500 is Bad but if possible 19" racks should be prefered if you really care for the best quality. If budget limited, then secondhand is the way to get high end at decent price (with huge digging to target strong Geard out of hype and patience to get a good deal).

Which is why I like Fredenstein Bentos', not expensive to begin with and a big beefy power supply way beyond the minimum current specs for API 500.

There are lots of interesting vintage circuits that are available today only because they can be built and sold in 500-series format. The higher investment required in engineering and production required for 19 inch gear, together with low potential sales volume for these niche processing functions would make them economically untenable in rack mount format.

Yeah i Heard that. Interesting.

Can't really compare to a vintage design. Let's Say "in the spirit" but in modern way. Once you tried vintage modules, you know it has nothing in common with today's Gear. Newer components, better specs, wider bandwidth; on the paper it is better but miss the mojo, no matter the effort. And if vintage Electronic was limited, components were better grade, example metals were much more pure etc. You can't really replicate vintage, no matter what marketing claims.
But yes rack is a niche market, Always been... There's a new "consumer/prosumer/home studist" market where to sell more, and there is a huge competition etc. But honnestly, some brands show well how it's possible to make high end racks more affordable. So this is just an excuse, most manufacturers don't want to bother: 1-majority of people have been converted to 500 already, the hype is huge, 2-it's much more easy and profitable to sell those modules. Big brands even sold at crazy prices... Not worth it i think. Will they last for decades? I dont think so. Yet i have 30-50yo racks, work like a charm.
This new Era of Electronic is about quantity and profit. Not saying there is no quality to find, but yeah it's another world... Mass consumption....

Deepest bass on a compressor is the Phoenix audio 500. It’s nuts. I don’t know how they wind those transformers.

Gyraf Audio G25: VocalShape

You could consider checking out the Gyraf G25 Vocalshape. I've had one for about a month and it's fantastic. It's basically a smorgasbord of hors d'oeuvres from the Gyraf lineup all especially curated to be ideal for vocals. It's actually fantastic on guitar and mono mic'ed instruments, has a DI and also a dedicated line in for outboard mixing.

I wonder if that crown will be taken by the Coil Audio compressor when it hits the streets? :-)

On the thighs of virgins (picked up at video gaming conferences)

This was an example of how a 500 module can sound really deep and not so much a competition.