Not the same design. I believe different transformers. In any case the mono version sounded thicker and richer with more grab/character. The 2-1176 sounded cleaner and had way less character. You had to set the attack and release at extreme settings and slam it pretty hard to get a bit of the 1176 mojo going. I just don't like to work that hard. YMMV. I will say I thought it made a decent bus compressor/limiter. Would probably work real well on backup vox or keys or strings or something like that. I sold the one I had FWIW.
Sean