X32 Compact

[Stuart91]

Unless I've misread what you're saying you can chain two S16s as well though - the S16 has dual AES50 and will translate/patch the inputs & outputs from one onto the other (combined with it's local inputs) to cascade - the SD16 claims you can combine up to 3 to give 48ch to FOH (I don't know what you'll do with those extra 16channels at FOH though?) and it's not quite clear how the patching on the boxes works as they don't seem to have a screen & menu like the S16s.

 

I did this recently - venue has an X32 and single S16 in regular use, incoming clients brought an additional S16 and just daisy chained a CAT 5 between. I can't remember what patching etc. was required to get both working but it was fairly straightforward and didn't take long to work out.

[S&L]

To clarify a few points:

 

1. the s32 isn't available yet - they haven't given a date but they have suggested the price will be a couple of hundred pounds cheaper than two s16s

 

2. same goes for the SD16 and the SD8 - but they DO come with two AES50 ports just the same as the S16 and ultranet monitoring system ports (according to their product sheet) - essentially they appear to be a drop box version of the S16.

 

3. chaining these boxes is pretty straight forward and detailed in the S16 manual. the console has an A port and B port and in the routing section you can choose to receive from either in banks of 8 - but can also circumvent those banks of 8, to some extent, on the individual channel over rides.

 

using two s16's you could connect one to each port or more conventionally use the A port to connect to the first s16 then connect from the B port on the 1st S16 to the A port of the 2nd S16 - all the channels then show up under the A port routing section at the console. the S16's can be selected to work this way with the first box being 1-16 and the second box being 17 to 32. there are a lot of other possibilities for odd routing options as well.

 

4. you CAN connect 3 S16s or other boxes giving you 48 remote channels but you can ONLY select 32 of those channels at any one time.

 

5. a lot of engineers are using an x32 rack set as an s16 (it can be set as a dumb S16 if needed), plus another s16 if needed. it's a couple of hundred more than an S16 but has a couple of advantages. first, in the unlikely event of failure you have a tablet operable back up - the show can go on. second, you can use it instead of FOH for simple shows. Third, in many cases (I'm looking at this option myself) since it has 16 ins and an additional 6 line ins it's essentially a 22 channel stage box with the line signal limitation on 6 of those channels. I need to play with this to see if those channels are really limited to line in. all 22 channels would be available at FOH console and since you can patch any incoming channel to any physical channel on the console then you can still add channel compression, gate, etc.

it won't suit everyone but there is a lot to be said for using an x32 rack as your stagebox.