A little sick of the questionable quality of lower end gear. I'm not looking for a major investment but I'm looking for something reliable. I've been considering the A&H Zed R16 or there's also the Fireface. I know that people are quite satisfied with the RME stuff. I'm wondering though about the Zed R16. Anyone using it with Windows 7?
Anything else around the $2000 range? Something with at least Two reasonable mic preamps? I've thought about the Mackie Onyx 1640i but their quality control always leaves me guessing.
MOTU maybe? It'll be a couple of months but I'm looking for a good long term investment. PCI would be ideal but Firewire is convenient. Maybe MOTU is the way to go?
Just shopping out loud here. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Comments
There's a lot about the R16 that I like. The fact that it acts a
There's a lot about the R16 that I like. The fact that it acts as a control surface is an incredible bonus. The thing that worries me is that it has so many great features. I hope that they didn't cheap out on anything. I don't have my heart set but that is looking like the most viable route on a feature vs price scenario. It seems to integrate with Sonar well, so that is a bonus. I've been considering the upgrade to Sonar XI. It's cheap enough. Far cheaper than the upgrade to ProToons 9
TheJackAttack, post: 359275 wrote: The R16 has been out quite a
TheJackAttack, post: 359275 wrote: The R16 has been out quite a while. No one has remotely called it lacking that I have read about. Boswell really likes it and his standards are as high as anyone.
Hmm, well, I'm not quite sure about the standards, but the R16 is excellent for a fixed-function device at that price point. As we've seen in recent threads, if you may need more than 16 channels, or you want flexible pre/post fader aux outputs, you are going to feel cramped. However, it does all it claims to do in a high-quality good-value package.
It's a pity that the big-brother GS24 is so much more expensive, but it could be that it leaves room for an R24 - a "stretched" R16 - in the original line. Certainly a device with 24 quality pre-amps and 3 ADAT I/Os would excite ardent HD24 owners and get around the nagging obligation for them to move to the (discontinued) HD24XR.
If I were purchasing a mixer today, I'd be looking for nice prea
If I were purchasing a mixer today, I'd be looking for nice preamps, good stable firewire I/O, good line input flexibility, and if it had automation that would be a bonus. I obviously went the FF800 route when I tired of dragging the Onyx 1640 around all the time. I've been happy with that route but if I had the room I'd still like to have a mixer. I'm building a workshop this winter/spring so I'll be interested with what path you choose. By the way, I don't think you can go too wrong with the ZED R16 or GS24 and the preamps are reputably very nice. Of course a PCIe bus would still be the most latency free of what is currently available at least until the new light technology comes of age.