BillFitzmaurice.info

Has anyone used the Zed 10FX? (http://www.allen-heath.co.uk/zed/zed-10FX.asp).

The Zed pre's are based on their PA series mixers, and have a pretty rep. But the 10FX pre's are based on the MixWizard series, which I'm not familiar with.

Ive never used—nor really even seen—the Zed series mixers. I do, however, have a MixWiz3 16:2 (two years old with built in effects) installed at a local coffee shop that has a wide variety of bands and artists through every single weekend. I have no complaints at all about the mixer nor its mic preamps.

I also have no issues with their older GL2200 series consoles, though the circuit design and physical construction on the inside leave a lot to be desired. (It's all really really cheap inside, with the cheapest PC boards possible, as few op amps as possible, and a grounding scheme that makes working on the thing a real pain.)

I've been using a GL2400 most recently and am researching a ZED 436 right now for my current install. A primary feature for me is the fact that you get an output with each input. It's looking like the one I need and will decide by tomorrow..

We had a GL2400 at church, two actually. First one burned up within a few weeks, second one that was given to us as warranty replacement for the first we sold after a year or two because it seemed the preamps sucked the life out of whatever you plugged into it. A cheap Behringer mixed sounded better if you can believe it, and now we have a great sounding Crest Console with Burr Brown preamps.

Zack Brock wrote:We had a GL2400 at church, two actually. First one burned up within a few weeks, second one that was given to us as warranty replacement for the first we sold after a year or two because it seemed the preamps sucked the life out of whatever you plugged into it. A cheap Behringer mixed sounded better if you can believe it, and now we have a great sounding Crest Console with Burr Brown preamps.

Damn! I had better luck with mine, but I don't doubt your BEH "upgrade". They've been impressing me with quality and really competitive price points more and more recently. That Crest sounds sweet!

As an AH Owner / user for many years I have always loved their preamps and cannot recall where anyone who didn't love them as well and that includes Crest owners who mixed on AH desks. Nicest sounding pre I have ever worked with was on an old Neve console and the dirtiest a Trident console.Even the Trident console was very capable of producing some nice dirty vocals without using an external pre. Think Queen Bohemian Rhapsody. That whole album was mixed on a Trident board and the pres were very dirty but used in a very dirty but tasteful way!

Yamaha's are the most sterile to me and require very ginger input levels but mixed cold they sound fine.

I haven't used a Behringer yet that I liked.In fact I suppose I will be mixing on one Sat eve but I'm seriously thinking about hauling my O1V because I really hated that B-ringer board. The effects were terrible and the pres clipped so easy they made noise of the cleanest signals! My bro uses a smaller B-ringer 12 channel for doing smaller wedge mixes but hauls a 4 channel mic pre because he hates the Mic pres on that one as well especially on vocals.

One of my good friends mixes on a Crest and the other on a Soundcraft. I've ran both those consoles and they are fine. Midas is probably the best monitor board I've ever had the pleasure of mixing on and once I got to play with a Gamble Board! Now that was sweet but I was freeking afraid to even touch it because they are so dam expensive! That may have been the only time I ever shook while mixing a band! Intimidation the entire time!

AH is still my favorite sounding in an affordable mixer. Then the Yamahas. I do not care for mackies or Behringers at all and most of the Peavys,Studio Master or Ross boards I have ever heard were noisy buggers.

Something might've been wrong in that entire batch of units or something, considering that the replacement sounded horrible - so just take my anecdotal story as just that, one man's experience

I would like a good Midas board... or even a SoundCraft Ghost, they've always peaked my interest.

Ron K wrote:As an AH Owner / user for many years I have always loved their preamps and cannot recall where anyone who didn't love them as well and that includes Crest owners who mixed on AH desks.

Same here. I think this is the first negative experience I've heard from a user..

I really haven't used a Beh mixer so I can't comment on them. I was more thinking of their new <$60 tube mic preamp that I really like.

IME, every over-driven A&H sounds just like every over-driven Mackie.

It seems kinda pointless to use a Midas level board, and over drive the system so the output sucks.

ive used/seen in use 3 behringer mixers, cant remember the models since none of them were mine. the first was a powered mixer, it had a terrible hiss i found it quite annoying since it was being used as a PA for a church service.
the second was the one my mate bought for use in his bed room. the preamps were very noisy and he was unhappy with it. i had a bit of a play with it but couldn't get it to sound any better.
the third belonged to the guitarist of my mates band. there was only one effect that sounded good (chorus + reverb) but the channels sounded clean. and the output to FOH was good (tho the tweeters in the Yamaha 215s always sound harsh). but as soon as i plugged the amp for the monitors and BUZZZZZZZZZZZZ. but if i plugged it into the prefade out it sounded fine so thats how we ran that night. the client was very happy with the performance and the sound that night so the behringer board cant be too bad then.

My sons school has a ZED24. Sorry but I just have to vent my frustration at this desk.

I know these are built to a budget, but this desk annoys me every time I use it. What's the point of building a 24 channel desk with no subgroups? There isn't even any master faders on Aux 3+4 FFS! The routing limitations on this desk make it difficult to use.
e.g. - A teacher comes over 1/2 hour before the start of a gig and says "can you give me a sound output from the desk to my video camera?" With this desk - No. With enough notice to bring in my yammy to the gig, the answer would have been "yes, no problem".
I will be taking my own desk next time.

Can't comment on the sound because it goes into a badly installed house system in a gym, and sounds a mess - (Fill cabs wall mounted halfway down the hall, pointing at the back wall with no delay = MUSH.)

[Behringer bashing mode on:] My local Arts centre has 2 BROKEN behringer desks in its store. They lasted about 18months before random knobs and preamps started going down on them. A DJ producer mate of mine has a 24channel behringer in his home studio. Quote from him "Oh no, you can't use my desk for a gig, because if you turn on more than 2 channels at once the hissing becomes to loud." Nuff said?

To Answer the O.P. - If it where my money, I would buy a small Yamaha MG desk (and have), because you have a lot more input / output and routing options to cope with last minute "Oh by the way"'s. They have more features than the competition at this price point.

On the other hand, I have just ordered an Allen and Heath GL2400-24 for my main system, because it has 4band eq, and 4 way matrix output, that the equivalently Yammy does not have in that price range.

moo wrote:My sons school has a ZED24. Sorry but I just have to vent my frustration at this desk.

I know these are built to a budget, but this desk annoys me every time I use it. What's the point of building a 24 channel desk with no subgroups? There isn't even any master faders on Aux 3+4 FFS! The routing limitations on this desk make it difficult to use.
e.g. - A teacher comes over 1/2 hour before the start of a gig and says "can you give me a sound output from the desk to my video camera?" With this desk - No. With enough notice to bring in my yammy to the gig, the answer would have been "yes, no problem".
I will be taking my own desk next time.

The Yamaha 24 is also 300 dollars US more then the ZED 24 so I'm thinkin you're paying more for those extra groups and mixing options! A 24 channel straight out board is exactly what it is. No frills 24 channels into a final mix with some Auxs that can be used as monitor channels (selectable pre or post via internal solder links) or effect loop channels. The ZED24 is no stellar mixing platform but for the price it isn't bad. It is what it is.

You'll like the 2400-24. It has plenty of routing options and the ability to reverse faders from auxes to groups!

For the OP:The ZED pres based on the MIXWIZ preamps. They are pretty decent and like most AH preamps they have a boatload of headroom.

I'm getting a PreSonus 16:4 tomorrow for the 8.1 lakeside club/lounge project I'm working on. After several emails and an hour long phone call with 2 techs at PreSonus they had no solution for me to use this the way I wanted. A day of research later I found a solution (programmable channel routing) myself so I could use this the way I wanted (discrete processed control over 16 outputs).. hell yeah. The processing, mixing and recording interface are awesome features to have in one unit. It looks like I can pull a dbx pa+ out of the signal chain..

Ron K wrote:The Yamaha 24 is also 300 dollars US more then the ZED 24 so I'm thinkin you're paying more for those extra groups and mixing options! A 24 channel straight out board is exactly what it is. No frills 24 channels into a final mix with some Auxs that can be used as monitor channels (selectable pre or post via internal solder links) or effect loop channels. The ZED24 is no stellar mixing platform but for the price it isn't bad. It is what it is.

I accept that it is a good quality board for the price, but I was comparing it to my Yamaha MG206c-usb which has tons more features, same XLR channel count, and can be had for the same money as the zed24 in the U.K.
The Zed may have slightly better sound quality, which is moot in a live venue, however its inflexibility makes it irritating to use after being used to my Yamaha.

The only features the Zed24 has over the MG206c is leds on the PFLs, and 2 extra stereo (line input only) channels.

Things the MG206c has, which the Zed 24 does not have:
1. Selectable pre/post fade in Aux 3+4 - (Without having to stop the soundcheck, Turn all the amps off, unplug the desk, find a torx driver, take the cover of the back, and then permanently change the setting,( - unless you also happen to have a soldering iron warmed up at the ready incase you change your mind) Then put it back together again plug it in, then turn on the amps, then if you have enough time left, find which pub all of the band members have drifted off to, herd them back into the venue and resume the soundcheck! )
2. Master volume out for Aux 3+4
3. 2x stereo subgroups
4. 2x sets of master outputs XLR and TRS
5. 8x built in compressors
6. Its footprint is nearly half of the Zed 24 - or one punters seat in a tight venue, or half the packspace in the back of the car/van.
7. its also 4.5 KGs lighter than the Zed24

For the same price as the Zed24.

I was running 2 Mackie SRM450V2s directly from the balanced outs on a E-Mu 0404 sound card. Sounded pretty good, I had the Mackies turned up 1/4 of the way, and was making things unbearably loud with the 0404 turned up 60% or so.

Needed a vocal mic, so I plugged in a cheapie Behringer 5 input unit. Lord, what a piece of junk. Turned the bass on the mixer all the way down and the treble all the way up, and the woman on the mic still sounded like a man. And the music which sounded really nice going direct, got this godawful muffled quality.

So, no more Behringer mixers for me.

Also borrowed an older Yamaha mixer once. Had to turn the maser volume waaaaaaay down, and the volume on the powered speakers waaaaaay up before it cleaned up.