Thread: Replacing a 10 year old Soundcraft

I've always been partial to soundcraft, and the http://www.soundcraft.com/products/product.aspx?pid=131 looks like a really nice console. I like the sound of soundcraft. There is a sale on the crest at soundbroker.com For Sale - CREST AUDIO HP 840 - 40 CHANNEL X 8 BUSS WITH 10 AUX 5STEREO 4 BAND EQ - Listing Detail - SoundBroker.com Call Jan Landy there. Never liked crest though.

Allen & Heath GL3800/40, looks nice too but my pick of your 3 is SoundCraft only because I like them for live sound.

Crest was a good live board in the early mid 90's prior to Peavey purchasing them. I can't comment on current Crest products but they were never what I would call a recording board. A&H seems to have their stuff together and producing top notch gear judging from their recording boards. Soundcraft has always been a solid company for live reinforcement IMO. I guess I'd check out the layouts and see which of the latter two seems to fit your physical space as well as control workflow.

As a long time Soundcraft dealer/installer, who personally owns (and regularly uses) 3 of their mixers, and uses one of their Live 8 boards at his own church..... I would prefer the A-H of those three. < Surprise! >

First of all, I don't think you would be disappointed with the pres in any of them, they should all be on pretty even ground there. I've always preferred the British EQs, so that cuts the choices to two.


The GL3800 has better metering, a dedicated Pad switch on each channel, 10-Auxes (although 9&10 are a stereo aux send), and a slightly more versatile Matrix. I like the idea of being able to inject an external signal into the 12x4 matrix.


The GB8 has 8 Auxes, an 11x4 matrix, plus the nice addition of 4 fully functional stereo input channels (which are more conveniently located than the 2 stereo channels A-H provides above the subgroups). But the main difference is you can send those channels to any Aux, just like a mono input. Where the GL3800 and HP8 severely limit the capability of their stereo inputs. In a church setting fully functional stereo channels can be very handy.
I'd also add that my Live 8 has better metering, and if you've got sufficient headroom with your amp/speakers that you don't have to run the pres wide open, it's also a very decent mixer. 6-Aux, 2-Matrix Outputs are Left/Right only (no Center) if that's important to you. We're running In-Ears and don't need a ton of Aux sends and don't need L/R/C.


I can't comment on the Crest, having never seen one in person and heard one for myself. I do know Crest was making high quality mixers long before they were bought by Peavey, I haven't seen any evidence that Peavey has ruined the Crest line of amplifiers. Although I would say their merger seems to have noticeably improved the Peavey line of amps. Crest mixing consoles? I can't say. The HP series appears to be very well thought out and a very straight-forward design with 10 mono Auxes and 11x2 Matrix. Who knows, it might even have a British EQ design. Metering on the groups, but none that I can see on the channels beyond a 'signal present' LED. The HP8 also appears to have several Stereo inputs above the subgroups, which can only send to Aux 9 & 10 and have limited EQ.



At the end of the day you've got three choices: Made is the UK (A&H), Made in the US (Crest), and Made in China (Soundcraft) if that sort of thing matters to you.

If I'm being honest, I've been disappointed with the direction Soundcraft has been heading the past few years. It seems to me they've been undercutting their reputation for quality and tarnishing their good name by putting out some cheap entry-level products and out-sourcing the manufacturing even on some moderately expensive boards - such as the GB8. You can take that for what it's worth.


Best of luck.

This was the first question I've posted and I am getting great feedback. The Crest idea is now toast, and we are looking at the other two. Soundcraft has been a good board, but I either didn't know or I forgot where they are made. dvdhawk has a very good point about quality. Most products that moved productions to China do have a very noticeable drop in quality. I was leaning toward the Soundcraft, but I think I need to take a better look at the A-H.

In all likelihood your 10 year old K2 was made in the UK - and was/is a very nice (although aging) board.
[A few thousand new capacitors and a few new faders and she'd probably be good as new.]

Maybe someone else can report on how something like the Midas Verona has fared post-globalization, the B--ring-r buyout, and whether it's worth consideration (or at least still made in the UK). In any case, it would be up a level price-wise.


Did you know you can connect two PreSonus StudioLive 24.4.2s together with a special bracket and a Firewire cable to make a 48 input, 8-bus, 10-aux digital console for about the same price as the HP8 and GB8 and substantially less than the GL3800? (if multi-track recording is a priority, you cannot record 48 channels at a time in that configuration - but the DB25 Direct Outs would still work to an external recorder)

I have used and owned A & H mixers since their inception in the mid-70s, ditto with Soundcraft. Soundcrafts have always irked me with all of the little things that can drop out on you, plus their PS's get buggy earllier than Jap boards. This begs the question - since you want to stay analog - have you considered the Yamaha IM8 ?
It is a little more money, but it's better built than any of the Brit boards in that general price range. I have never had a Yamaha fail me, and I've mixed on a LOT of them. In the South where it's a sweat shop when the A/C isn't cranked down during the week. In Vegas where the board would bake in a warehouse rehearsal studio.
And frozen in the rear of a van buried in a snowdrift in Flint, MI. Ya pay yer money and ya takes your chances!

I love Yamaha stuff too. I've got an early 80's Yamaha MC2404 in the stable of mixers that has never failed us. It's been the equivalent of an SM58. In 30 years, the only 'repair' ever needed was remove a few screws to hinge the top cover up and tighten the set screw in one of the panel mount XLRs that had worked loose and the occasional DeOxit. Left in the equipment truck year round up here where we have 4 seasons. It's been a trooper.

Oh why not... let's just throw a bit of napalm on the subject... and see if it smells like victory... or something you might step in....

K2's were solid... but known for a few issues... especially the PSU's. It's still a viable piece of gear, but you gotta expect that ANY console is gonna need TLC after 10 years. (Well... any console worth anything on the used market, anyway.) Many "mid-line" consoles might as well be trashed as they can't be, or aren't worth repairing.

A&H still makes good gear, and parts are easily had, and most repairs are easy enough.

Never been a big fan of Crest, but I have limited time on EM'... so take that with a grain of salt.

Verona's (pre Uli) are good lil rigs... Can't say for sure about newer...

One avenue I would explore, IF you can get a decent maintenance budget... Midal XL, H3k, Paragon or possibly a Showco will show up in the marketplace for STOOPID cheap.

They're big, solid, heavy and about as reliable as the sun rising in the east, when they're given even a modicum of TLC.

Production companies are switching to the Yomamaha digital boards (which I personally think sound as sterile as an alchohol wipe.), Digico's and Avid's. They're not seeing too many riders for the big ol' solid beasties anymore and the new generation of digital boards are stock and standard on riders... So you can get into some really good consoles that STILL have another 20 years left in em' for dirt cheap... (compared to what they originally sold for.)







Did I just fan the flames or what?!?!?