Allen & Heath budget digital mixer - coming soon!

[Mixermend]

In the News items section on the A&H web site there is a brief teaser of a new digital mixer:

 

"Finally, a professional digital mixing system at a distinctly analogue price!

 

We can't wait to unveil our most accessible digtal mixing system yet in January 2011"

 

Some info and pictures:

 

A&H news page

[Simon Lewis]

In the News items section on the A&H web site there is a brief teaser of a new digital mixer:

 

Clever guys... take existing technology and repackage it into a budget sensitive format before Behringer hit the streets with theirs?!

[cedd]

Very clever indeed! And when faced with a choice between Allen and Heath and Behringer, I know which way most people I know would go! It's certainly got me thinking!

 

From zooming the photos, looks to be a cat5 snake with stage box. The stage box top ethernet socket is labelled "Expander, in 25 - 32, out 13 - 18" I think. Suggests to me it's a reasonably fixed patching layout and you can add more channels with more stage boxes, but the basic system is 24/12. Also the top left pic suggests it's touch screen, with a recorder function and player. Looks to have colour coded lcd channel labels. Some nice functions like proper copy and paste buttons. Let's see how many faders the thing's got. I really hope it's more than 16/8! If it's got 24 channel faders then I'm sold! Just got to work out if 32 inputs is going to be enough for the long term.

It's hard to see, but it looks to be quite a small format console. From the sideways on shot looking over the console at the stage box, it looks quite low in height.

 

Seems to me that the visible part of the saving is the knobs and buttons, but they don't look that nasty. I'm really very interested!

[timsabre]

Looks rather more high-end than the forthcoming Behringer one. I wouldn't be expecting comparable prices.

[cedd]

Maybe not, but Allen and Heath have never had a product even in the LS9 camp before. The I-live's are all a little more money. To get something on an LS9 budget and spec (possibly better from a sound quality point of view) and with what I find a slightly easier user interface to use, I think it'll be jumping to the top of my list to look at when I go digital later this year.

[ProtecAV]

The Phonic digital mixer shouldn't be overlooked? For a snack size digital mixer? Lots of stuff for a reasonable price

 

Ps for any interested readers? I don't sell it

 

 

[Bobbsy]

Has the Phonic build quality improved since the days when I opened one of their analogue offerings and noticed their power supply wasn't just poor, it was borderline dangerous?

[dbuckley]

A&H have to do something.

 

If the Behringer delivers on it's promise (ie the X32 works as advertised and stays working for longer than five minutes) then the X32 is going to redefine the entry point of serious mixing. That point is curently held by A&H with the GL series. Thus there is a distinct possibility that the GLs are going to unsellable (and thus discontinued) by 2013.

 

We already know that Midas have had a hand in the analogue stages of the X32, I wonder how much of their DSP smarts have crossed the brand gap? I still think that the X32 might get a "Powered by Midas" badge on the front. That would be something of a selling point for Uli's game changer.

 

So for A&H, the game really is on. Fortunately, they've had a lot of advance notice even with publicly available information.

[Simon Lewis]

The Phonic digital mixer shouldn't be overlooked?

 

I'm with Bobbsy - I've sold a few Phonic items, and whilst passable they are simply not in the same league as A&H. Neither can you chat with the designer and ask if improvements could be incorporated...

[Dave C]

We already know that Midas have had a hand in the analogue stages of the X32

 

 

How do we know this? Do you have a source for this info please?

 

I can't find any indication that this is the case....although the product website does allude to some old reverb algorithms that they are including (pleasant sounding ones mind...KTDN780)

 

 

Thanks,

 

Dave.

[csg]

seems to be a very good idea - after all, they will have already done a lot of the hard work developing the iLive system, and I would not be at all surprised if most of the software and a lot of the hardware is directly derived from existing product

 

We invested in an iLive system a little while ago, and have been very happy with both the product and support ( no faults, just me getting tied in knots...), so if this system is like iLive, but at a more approachable price point, I think they will do well with this

 

unfortunately, despite it probably being an excellent product, the X32 is still going to say Behringer on it, and like it or not, that does make it difficult for it to be accepted into a lot of "pro" circumstances, even when it is totally adequate

[dbuckley]

How do we know this?

Behringer's facebook page

 

The preamp of the X32 is one of the finest components of the new digital console. It has been designed together with our friends from Midas, is fully programmable and has the sound quality and technical specs found in US$ 100,000 consoles. We are not exaggerating.

 

Unlike Yamaha, A&H et al, Behringer don't have a model hierarchy of digital mixers that they dont want to disrupt. This is why LS9s doesn't have DCAs; "you need to buy an M series to get that feature, Sir". So Behringer look like they are going for a bang for the buck machine. Hardware costs money, but software is free, and as long as the DSPs are sufficiently powerful (and Moore's Law makes that reasonably possible) it costs no more to have the reverb algorythm of a cheapo guitar pedal than it does a KT.

 

The X32 could be one of the most important mixer products launced ever, as I said, if it does what it says on the can, and doesn't fall apart. It could completely vaporise the mixer market from a few grand to several tens of grands. If the requirement can fit into 48 ins and 16 busses, then the X32 might end up being the tool of choice. Even if you need to carry a spare or two and have it on hot standby, its still a cost effective choice.

 

And this is why A&H need to do something good. Professionals like A&H, it's a well trusted name, so a well priced, well functioned system is what they need to close the gap from what will probably end up as "under $4,000 USD" to the serious machinary.

[Biro]

For anyone not on the mailing list, this picture was on the bottom of the email.

 

 

Pic

 

[lightsource]

Hardware costs money, but software is free, and as long as the DSPs are sufficiently powerful (and Moore's Law makes that reasonably possible) it costs no more to have the reverb algorythm of a cheapo guitar pedal than it does a KT.

 

 

Software is never free, there is always a price attached. One of my major 'pet hates' is poor quality software and there is plenty of it around.

Nvidia video cards, that don't release used memory, so clog a system up in minutes (no workaround)

Lexmark printer drivers that can hang a PC booting.

When Win95 was launched the CD player could not recognise an audio CD, and HP printer drivers caused a GPF (blue screen of death). I'm sure there are others who have complaints over Vista.

 

These are three of the largest software / hardware manufacturers in the world.

[mervaka]

I think what he meant was, once the software is written, that IP is then in the manufacturer's portfolio, and can then be used again and again on different products, and if need be it can have extra features/bugfixes pushed to it down the line. More importantly, a DSP core can contain many complete audio processing chains, and the space required to achieve in analogue terms is exactly why analogue desks are so damn big, and even then they still need outboard.