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.
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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.