Topic: DIY Compressor Guidance

[techgui]

OK, I'm absolutely happy with my DIY preamp (SSM2017) and just ordered a nice "little box" style enclosure to house it.  But now I'm thinking a portable  compressor (SSM2166) would be nice to insert between the preamp and the recorder, so I have some questions;

 1.  The SSM2166 is actually a preamp and compressor.  Should I omit the ssm2017 preamp and just use the ssm2166's?  (My main concern would be the inputs are not balanced.) 

2.  If I use both chips, the balanced input ssm2017 for the preamp and the ssm2166 for the compressor, would it be better to run the ssm2017 preamp at unity gain?  Bascically, just taking advantage of it's low noise balanced input. 

3.  Or should I run the ssm2017 preamp at some fixed gain to get the signal off the floor?  And also employ gain with the compressor chip?

I'm recording mostly voice with piano with this configuration and dynamic range is pretty wide. 

Any thoughts?

[techgui]

Do you know of a better quality compressor chip that could be used via battery power?