Mackie DL16S compared to A&H CQ-18T

[bryanmorton]

I'm in a band, trying to work out our next equipment purchase, and we're narrowing the selections down to these two items for on stage audio mixing. Would greatly appreciate input from the SOS community. Mackie DL16S or A&H CQ18T. Obviously two more channels with the A&H, but more expensive. Is it worth it? Thanks in advance.

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[shufflebeat]

The Mackie app is better laid out and intuitive once you’re familiar with the workflow. The A&H feels a little more convoluted, despite, I think, trying to be simpler.

I was an early-ish adopter of the Mackie dl1608 and went through some of the software teething troubles but Mackie really got their stuff together and my little baby has been faultless for years.

Since then I moved on to A&H by way of the Qu-Pac and now the SQ series. All are excellent for sound and workflow. I recently had a play with the new app to advise a friend who has just bought the mixer you’re looking at and that’s what my opinion is based on rather than real-world experience with that model.

A&H FX are generally nicer but, again, I haven’t heard this one properly yet.

Apart from that it’s just a matter of your requirements and ideal workflow so any clues you can provide would be good.

Hope that helps

[resistorman]

A venue I work at had a Mackie DL mixer and I disliked the sound enough to bring in an XR18 when I worked there. I recently got them to upgrade to a CQ 20B and it blows them both away in sound quality. I like it so much I bought one for myself. Not only that, it has a good network, multitrack and stereo onboard recording, and you can play tracks right from a USB stick. I tried it in my studio and affirmed that the sound quality is superior, noise is nonexistent, and the ASIO drivers work well. No Mac drivers needed. The wifi connection has been flawless, and connection is fast. It took a minute to wrap my head around the app but I've grown to like it better than the Behringer or Mackie. The only thing missing in my estimation is more flexibility in the AUX send source, it's either pre or post fader, nothing between. And the channel color selection is drabish I haven't tried the automatic and guided setup, so nothing to say about that.

[AlecSp]

In this game, it's all between XR, CQ and DL these days. The Soundcraft UIs have had more than their fair share of problems, and Soundcraft is a dead company, so it would be folly to recommend them as a new purchase these days.

For band use, I'm not convinced you will hear any difference in audio quality in a blind test. I continue to be bemused by the A&H fanboys in rapture over their "XCVA FPGA 96kHz" audio quality - in a pub band - really?

CQ-20B would seem a more appropriate contender against the DL18s. Personally, for these compact mixers, I prefer not to have a built in touch screen. They tend to be less responsive than even a cheap tablet, and 7" is quite small.

Bear in mind that CQ lacks DCAs and mute groups - may or may not be a thing for you.

Whatever you think of the apps, you can at least using Mixing Station across any of these mixers.

[resistorman]

For band use, I'm not convinced you will hear any difference in audio quality in a blind test. I continue to be bemused by the A&H fanboys in rapture over their "XCVA FPGA 96kHz" audio quality - in a pub band - really?

It's not just me that hears the difference in sound quality. We regularly have more than 200 Contra dancers and a sizeable staff. People continually come up to me and remark how much better the sound is. The board president said " I don't know much about sound, but it just sounds crisp and clear". This in a large gym with huge fans blowing, many people talking and laughing. Also, did you ever hear the sound of a couple hundred pairs of feet dancing? The noise floor is higher than any place I've ever worked. I am running the mixer flat except for a dip at 208hz on the mains and delay speakers and whatever minor EQ the mostly acoustic instruments need. The caller just has some hpf rolloff and compression. I had to do a lot of work to approximate this quality with the DL, less with the XR. I haven't been an A&H fanboy, but I might just be turning into one

[sonics]

Interesting. I too prefer the Behringer X-series to any Mackie I've used or heard. I've not spent a lot of time analysing why; I just avoid them now. The Behringer and A&H have all given me great results; I've not used the 96kHz stuff so can't comment on that. I suspect any difference would be quite tiny there.

[Sam Spoons]

I'm in accord with shufflebeat, I too was an early adopter of Mackies DL1608 and still have it. Before I retired from live sound I used the DL for a lot of gigs and was very happy with the sound. At the same time I worked for a PA hire company and we used various analogue and digital A&H kit and I also agree that the A&H stuff does sound better but for most of us the difference is small. I now have a couple of Behringer X32s (Compact and Rack) and use them for the occasional gig as well as the Compact being my studio desk, again the A&H do sound better but not enough to encourage me to change.

WRT the apps, the Mackie app is the nicest to use, the berry and A&H apps are less intuitive than the Mackie (but bear in mind that there is no such thing as as intuitive app really, they all need learning but the learning curve for the Mackie app is much shallower than the others).

[AlecSp]

WRT the apps, the Mackie app is the nicest to use, the berry and A&H apps are less intuitive than the Mackie (but bear in mind that there is no such thing as as intuitive app really, they all need learning but the learning curve for the Mackie app is much shallower than the others).

App ease of use is subjective, and can be misleading, given that there may be more than one app available for a platform.

Mackie can be used by Master Fader and Mixing Station
A&H mixers can be used by MixPad and Mixing Station
Behringer mixers can be used by Edit (PC/Mac/Linux), native iPad software and Mixing Station.

Mixing Station's availability over multiple mixer models can be of significant benefit. It can have a bit of a learning curve initially, but then you discover the power of its customisation. It has very low resource usage and will perform well on older tablets where some vendor apps get unpleasangly laggy.

[Sam Spoons]

AFAIK the Behringer XR app is based closely on Mixing Station (I also have an XR12), it does looks and feel very similar to the X32 Mix app too. Mixing Station is flexible and powerful but I still fell that Mackie Master Fader has the shallowest learning curve of all the mix apps I've tried. Disclaimer though, I don't use the latest versions as I've taken a 'if it ain't broke' approach to my occasional use of the DL1608 these days and remain on MF4 (and TBH, would have been happy to continue on MF2). For a brief period (before Apple made them pull the plug) Mackie has MF4 and MF 'Classic' (which was MF2 in all but name) running side by side with Classic being aimed at new users or those with more basic requirements.

[sonics]

AFAIK the Behringer XR app is based closely on Mixing Station (I also have an XR12), it does looks and feel very similar to the X32 Mix app too.

I believe David Schumann codes Mixing Station, and that he was originally hired by Behringer to create apps for their mixers.

[resistorman]

I've used control apps from all the usual and some unusual suspects. I don't find any of them particularly difficult to learn or even all that different... doesn't seem to me a valid argument pro or con for hardware.

[Aled Hughes]

In this game, it's all between XR, CQ and DL these days. The Soundcraft UIs have had more than their fair share of problems, and Soundcraft is a dead company, so it would be folly to recommend them as a new purchase these days..

I haven’t had to use their support, so you might be right to a degree, but my Ui24R has been nothing but rock solid since I bought it years ago. There were a few problems with the smaller 12 and 16, but from what I understand the 24 was completely new, and addressed those issues. Most user complaints I’ve seen has been about the built in Wifi, though mine has been great since the last firmware update, and that’s easily resolved with another router anyway.

As you said, it might not be the safest recommendation at the moment, but it is a very capable good sounding box.

[Sam Spoons]

AFAIK the Behringer XR app is based closely on Mixing Station (I also have an XR12), it does looks and feel very similar to the X32 Mix app too.

I believe David Schumann codes Mixing Station, and that he was originally hired by Behringer to create apps for their mixers.

Yes, that sounds about right

[neonknight]

In this game, it's all between XR, CQ and DL these days. The Soundcraft UIs have had more than their fair share of problems, and Soundcraft is a dead company, so it would be folly to recommend them as a new purchase these days.

For band use, I'm not convinced you will hear any difference in audio quality in a blind test. I continue to be bemused by the A&H fanboys in rapture over their "XCVA FPGA 96kHz" audio quality - in a pub band - really?

CQ-20B would seem a more appropriate contender against the DL18s. Personally, for these compact mixers, I prefer not to have a built in touch screen. They tend to be less responsive than even a cheap tablet, and 7" is quite small.

Bear in mind that CQ lacks DCAs and mute groups - may or may not be a thing for you.

Whatever you think of the apps, you can at least using Mixing Station across any of these mixers.

Can someone tell a bit more about Soundcraft being a dead company? I am in the market for a compact digital mixer and the Ui24r ticks almost all boxes for me. What is going on with Soundcraft? Many thanks in advance...

[Aled Hughes]

In this game, it's all between XR, CQ and DL these days. The Soundcraft UIs have had more than their fair share of problems, and Soundcraft is a dead company, so it would be folly to recommend them as a new purchase these days.

For band use, I'm not convinced you will hear any difference in audio quality in a blind test. I continue to be bemused by the A&H fanboys in rapture over their "XCVA FPGA 96kHz" audio quality - in a pub band - really?

CQ-20B would seem a more appropriate contender against the DL18s. Personally, for these compact mixers, I prefer not to have a built in touch screen. They tend to be less responsive than even a cheap tablet, and 7" is quite small.

Bear in mind that CQ lacks DCAs and mute groups - may or may not be a thing for you.

Whatever you think of the apps, you can at least using Mixing Station across any of these mixers.

Can someone tell a bit more about Soundcraft being a dead company? I am in the market for a compact digital mixer and the Ui24r ticks almost all boxes for me. What is going on with Soundcraft? Many thanks in advance...

Not sure what the situation is, but my UI24R has been one of the useful pieces of equipment I’ve ever owned. They got so much right with it, and only a couple of niggles (48kHz operation only being one obvious one, and the ASIO driver isn’t great for very low latencies, at least not on my Surface Pro. My RME Babyface is much more stable at low buffer sizes. This isn’t a concern 99% when using the UI24R though, unless you want to run soft synths/processing in real time with it.)

I know that the team behind the UI24 (well, Danny Olesh anyway, whose baby I think the UI24 is) used to work for SM Pro, then Soundcraft and then left for Mackie. They’ve since left Mackie, so who knows where they’re headed. If they could take their ideas for the UI24 to a solid company that could develop it, consider Dante etc, then they could be onto a massive winner.

RME would be the perfect match in my dreams (though it would be a completely new market for them!), followed by Cranborne. They both have most of the technologies needed! Universal Audio could be killer too with their processing and FX… I wonder if a studio/live crossover to this extent is likely in the next few years.

[neonknight]

Thank you, my idea is to use an Ui24 only for the IE monitor mixes for my 5-piece rock band and leave the FOH to whoever is in charge of it at whatever club we are playing and occasionally use it for FOH as well if we really need to. I think I might still go for it, even with all the rumours... The next choice would be the Yamaha TF rack, but I think the Ui24r will do the job, in that price range especially. I have looked at all the obvious alternatives in its price range and it seems to be the sexiest of them all...yes, the Yamaha TF is great but its price does not make it sexy compared to the Soundcraft