Allen & Heath boards?

[rod horncastle]

I was just eyeing the 16 channel Allen & Heath board at my local store. It was under a $1000 which was nice. Anyone know much about these things. are they close to a Mackie 1604 in sound and useability? Are they poorly made or a great deal?
Of course the guys in the store say they are the best things ever made so...? We all know better than to trust the guy behind the counter.

[jjboogie]

I was just eyeing the 16 channel Allen & Heath board at my local store. It was under a $1000 which was nice. Anyone know much about these things. are they close to a Mackie 1604 in sound and useability? Are they poorly made or a great deal?
Of course the guys in the store say they are the best things ever made so...? We all know better than to trust the guy behind the counter.


Its been a while but I used to work for an instrument repair shop and we used to get Mackie stuff in for repair almost daily and all the techs cursed Mackie up and down for being absolute junk!

The only time we had an Allen & Heath board in was NOT even for repair but just to add some kind of upgrade!

I don't own either but Allen & Heath has a good rep indeed! I personally would by A&H over Mackie any day of the week!

[offbeat]

I'm certainly not an expert, but I own a Mackie 24 channel board. I was asked to run sound for a band that has an A&H 24 channel, the GL4400 or something like that, and the A&H seemed MUCH more musical than my Mackie. It also had more headroom. Given the choice, I'd take the A&H over the Mackie without hesitation.

[mxandmyax]

I have the Allen and Heath 16:2 board. I use as both a monitor board and a foh board... Kille for smaller venues. Puts mackie in the dirt, No comparison. really reactive eq, enough auxs, and just sounds more viceral than most other smallish boards. I've also mixed on the gl 2400, In my opinion the gl keeps up with the midas of the simular level... venis I belive. Obviously cant touch the higher end stuff but you know.... I liked it enough, and found that I could use it reguardless of if we had an additional board for foh. So I bought it.

Love it

[loudboy]

MixWizards rule that price point.

[rod horncastle]

Wow! Thanks guys. That kind of agrees with some of the rumours I've heard over the years.

Never heard of MixWizard? I'll have to snoop around.

[rockabilly69]

Since I own both, I can give you a very unbiased answer. I own both the Mackie 1604VLZ, and the Allen and Heath CP12 (powered with effects).

And I without a doubt think the Allen and Heath pres are the most musical pres I have ever heard in a club board. I use very good microphones in an acoustic format (neumann, AKG, and Beta 87 shures). I can dial in a good tone so fast on the Allen and Heath that it is scary. I love the versatility of the Mackie 1604, but the preamps do not sound as musical, nor do they have the headroom. I have also opened up both mixers, and they are both put together very well. I own three Mackie Mixers and use them regularly. The 1604, an Onyx 1220, and a 460M powered, and am a staunch supporter of Mackie gear, but the Allen and Heath CP12 is unbelievably good sounding, and shares the same pres with the Mix Wizards and ZED series.

Dan

[fuzzyguitars]

i got me an mixwiz

never a hiccup!

[Bo Faulkner]

AH > Mackie

[LSchefman]

For a long time there was an AH submixer feeding the SSLs at a studio I did business with, and it sounded damn nice. It was a more expensive model, but not in the stratosphere.

[Jerry]

If your board ever needs service, the A&H will be much easier to service because it's not using surface mount parts like the Mackie.

[pvalenti]

I've got both a Mackie VLZ1604 and an Allen & Heath GL2400 and there is really NO comparison. The A&H is hands-down a MUCH better board. Not sure how it compares to what you are looking at as A&H has a lot of different models. But going from the Mackie to the A&H was a HUGE step UP for me!

The pre's are pristine sounding with TONS of headroom. The board is much more flexible than the Mackie BY FAR...direct outs on every channel, inserts on every channel and bus, 6 aux buses, 24x4x2x1 with Matrix submixes, it has a built-in pink noise generator which works great with an RTA and a good reference mic if you have them.

Pretty big difference in price though since I didn't pick a comparable mixer. I think the 1604 was around $1200 new and the A&H was $2000. But we're talking about 24 channels vs. 16 and a MUCH more 'friendly' channel eq as well. I could go on...but what would be the point really?

If your budget allows it...BUY ALLEN & HEATH!

[BarneyFife]

We have been using the Allen and Heath CP12 (powered with effects) for over a year now. I used to have the Mackie 808M. The Mackie never once had a problem and always sounded good. Did hundreds of gigs with it. But the CP12 changed the whole sound of our band. It really does sound great. Our harmonies just ring now. No problems after 50 or so gigs.

[Mercury25]

+100 on the A&H MixWizard 16:2.

It replaced a Mackie CFX16, and there is no comparison between the sound, features and aux outs... A&H all the way!

[rod horncastle]

It sounds like i'll get my money's worth. Thanks for the recommendations everyone. :love:

[DAB]

I also love the sound of A&H boards but before you buy check out a Yamaha 01V96VCM. Its a digital board (automation, moving faders, snapshot recall, Yamaha top of the line effects built in, a musical fully parametric EQ on each channel, dynamics on each channel. It retails for around $2,300 and can be found on eBay new for $2,150 and used for around $1,400. It is a lot of bang for the buck and has a stellar rep much like A&H.

Dave

[pvalenti]

Yeah great boards when run by someone who actually understands and can make use of it. I was on the fence about wether to go A&H or Yamaha...but I read FAR too many reviews that cited people having trouble with the basic functions of just routing a signal and getting something INTO and then OUT of the board. Plus it's only got 16 XLR inputs and to get MORE you need to purchase outboard equipment...which seemed a bit idiotic to me given the price of the initial board.

In the end 'ease of operation' won out over TECH. I will say that in the right hands the Yamaha boards DO sound incredible and (being a tech nut myself) I wanted one. I just didn't want to spend weeks or months learning how to use it, PLUS extra cash just getting 24 channels into the thing. They DO sell a board with more ins...but it's WAY too expensive (over $10k)!

The one thing that they do WELL though is eliminate having to purchase outboard compressors, gates, eq's, and crossover or DriveRack units. Plus the EQ section on each channel is REALLY flexible and nice.