What's the difference between ISA 430 MK I and II?

The 430 and 430 MkII are sonically very similar. The pre-amp, compressor, EQ, gate and de-esser circuits use the same designs. The elements in the MKII which will give a different sonic result are the vintage opto compressor or VCA limiter modes (instead of VCA compressor) and the switchable input impedance (between high, med, ISA 110, and low). Additional differences between the 430 and 430 MkII are:

- Mic and line coarse gain on rotary switch instead of pots
- 'Air' switch which induces inductor circuit for an open sounding high end
- VU meter calibration switchable between +4dBu and +18dBu
- Compressor 'Blend' control allowing you to mix between compressed and uncompressed signal
- Extra insert point, allowing EQ and dynamics to be split

The ISA 430 MkI uses the same digital card as the ISA 220. For the 430 MKII a newer digital card was designed and it will not work with the MKI.


The MKII card supports 176.4 and 192KHz sample rates which the original card did not and the jitter figure and noise performance are slightly improved.

The outputs are different too: a 9 pin D-sub connector outputs either AES or S/PIDIF and allows you to route a digital signal to a maximum of four different places.


Both cards have word clock in and out connectors and support Digidesign 256x Superclock.

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