Optical compression has a special sonic character that audiophiles can truly appreciate. The technology behind its behavior and the way it achieves gain reduction is so ingenious and at the same time quite simple: the core of the circuit is an electro-optical attenuator, whose light source intensity is directly proportional to the level of the incoming signal. The second part of the gain reduction circuit is a photoconductive cell, which reads the light’s intensity and in turn adjusts its resistance being applied to the signal. As a result, the output amplifier follows by adjusting its gain, thereby creating the compression.