Wow, impressive. I have a Cali76 again because I haven’t found anything else that brings out the attack of the note quite as well (the main thing I want from a compressor). I wonder if the Empress can do that as well...
I've never owned the Cali so I can't compare, but as to bringing out the attack of the note...
Yeah, big time. Set the attack and release fairly slow. And run the parallel compression (the Mix knob) around noon.