Chandler Limited LTD-2
A hand-wired compressor modeled on the Neve 2254, the box that keeps turning up in other people's racks.
Overview
The LTD-2 is a hand-wired compressor with four controls - release, attack, threshold and gain - plus a link switch. That's a short feature list. It's built around one circuit instead of trying to do everything. Chandler Limited modeled it on the Neve 2254. The company's own advertising billed it as a "2254 type" compressor, next to the LTD-1 "Expanded 1073" preamp and EQ, in a Mix (December 2001, p.225) spread. That's marketing copy, not a verdict, but it shows what the designer was chasing.
The LTD-2 shows up in a lot of different rigs. In a 2003 Pro Audio Review buyer's guide it's listed at $1,599, in a compressor category alongside far more elaborate multiband and dynamics processors. For a hand-wired, single-purpose unit, that price means the buyer is paying for the circuit and the build, not for a feature count.
Live sound gives the clearest picture of how it gets used. Mix (May 2013, p.34) documented Green Day's front-of-house engineer Kevin Lemoine mixing on a 32-channel Midas XL200 at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. That's a compressor trusted on vocals, guitars and horns in the same show, which comes from a clean gain-reduction stage rather than switchable modes.
Studio engineers used it the same way. In Electronic Musician, mixer Flyckt, working out of Khabang Studio in Stockholm on a Pro Tools HDX rig, counted the Chandler Limited LTD-2 among the tube EQs and tube compressors he leaned on. The list also included an ADL 1500, an RCA Ba25, a Teletronix LA-2A and a Unity Audio Lisson Grove AR-1. The fact sheet's other period source, a 2004 EQ feature on Ozzy Osbourne's studio build, lists the LTD-1 and LTD-2 among the outboard in a room stocked with a Universal Audio 1176 and a dbx 165.
The controls are few. Attack and release are on the front panel instead of fixed, so a 2254-derived design like this can be set for slow, gentle leveling or something firmer. The link switch lets a pair track together for stereo or bus duty. Threshold and gain are the usual onset and makeup controls. There's no ratio knob and no sidechain filter in the documented feature set. Owners who want surgical, ratio-selectable compression should look elsewhere.
Hand wiring at this price point means point-to-point assembly and serviceable internals instead of a surface-mount board, the sort of construction a tech can actually repair. Collectors note that Chandler Limited's hand-wired line has held its reputation partly on that serviceability. The LTD-2 also keeps appearing in professional rigs more than a decade after its introduction, which suggests these units get used, not shelved.
The documentation doesn't give a clean production timeline. The LTD-2 appears in print from at least the early 2000s through the 2010s, but the fact sheet doesn't pin down introduction or discontinuation dates, so any claim of a specific run is guesswork. What is documented is the price, $1,599 as listed in 2003, and the design lineage to the Neve 2254. Buyers chasing one today should expect the usual hand-wired caveats. Check that the link switch and the attack/release pots work smoothly, and confirm the unit hasn't been modified, since a hand-wired box is only as original as its last tech left it.
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