I am planning to purchase a QU-5. My primary use case is home-studio recording. The music is mostly rock and funk. My microphones and room are pretty typical for a solid live-sound setup: good-quality live mics, but not the really high-end studio gear.
My current mixer is a Soundcraft Ui24R, but I am starting to bump up against the channel count, and I also find it difficult to use. Most of my final mixes will end up on social media.
Recording Workflow and Sample Rate
I would like to use internal multitrack recording for the larger band sessions to keep things simpler instead of always having to record into a DAW. I’m comfortable using 48 kHz when recording over 16 channels, and as I understand it, the QU does its internal processing at 96 kHz and downsamples as needed. So in theory anyway I could send the lower frequency stuff to the AB168 to avoid hitting the aliasing filters and everything else to the QU. Other than sample rate the two boxes look very similar on paper.
Questions About AB168 vs DX168
Given that, I’m trying to decide between adding an AB168 or a DX168 stagebox.
Am I going to hear a meaningful difference using the AB168 instead of the DX168, either in the recordings or in IEM mixes? ie does the downsampling from 96kHz make a differance in a large band mix where everyone is in the same room.
Does anyone have experience running an AB168 into an SQ series mixer that might be relevant here?
SQ users claim to hear a differance when they went to 96kHz but that could just be the better processing overall. The added cost of the DX168 is not a deal breaker, however since the only way to record all 32 channels @96kHz is to go out to a DAW, which I am looking to avoid, is the DX overkill.
Generally speaking in a live sound situation, I don’t think you are going to “hear” a difference between the older AR/AB boxes and the newer DX/GX boxes. That being said, the preamps are different/better in the newer units, so its’s not just the sample rate that is different.
If there isn’t a huge cost difference, I would suggest going with the DX/GX boxes. Not so much due to the “better sound quality” which may or may not make a difference, but really because the DX boxes are going to be sold and supported by A&H for a very long time. With the addition of the new QU5/6/7 consoles, I don’t think there is a 48k console being actively produced/sold by A&H (I’d guess they are just clearing out old stock of the original QU models at this point). For this reason, I wouldn’t be surprised if the older AR/AB boxes stop being produced at some point. While I don’t think that day is in the immediate future, it is certainly going to arrive long before the DX/GX boxes stopped being produced. This means that future repairs/replacements or expansion boxes might eventually be harder to come by than it would be with the newer DX/GX boxes.
Let me be clear that this is nothing but my personal opinion/gut feeling. Whether or not my gut feeling turns out to come true or not can certainly be debated. I don’t have any insider knowledge, but common sense tells me the older AR/AB boxes have a shorter support “life expectancy” at this point than the newer DX/GX boxes. For this reason alone I would stick with the newer DX/GX boxes unless the cost of the AR/AB was so low that it was worth the “risk”.
I was using a Soundcraft Ui16 in a Church setting, doing FOH plus several Aux mixes, including Livestream with video. My Ui16 was killed by lightning several months ago and needed replaced. The only difference between your 24 and my 16 was IO counts and possibly your UI webpage looked slightly different.
I’m now doing all my mixing on an Allen and Heath Qu-5 and AB168 stage box. It’s working just fine, not any downgrade in audio whatsoever compared to the Ui16. In fact, this is noticeable better in every way. So yes you can go that way if you need to save some. If you choose the higher grade stage box, you’ll be in a future proof situation however.
My opinion, don’t force the 48k vs 96k to dictate what you get.
Hi,
I switched from ui24r to QU-5 because I missed the hardware faders on the ui24r.
If you plan to use the QU mainly for internal multitrack recording, than I woud reccommend to check these options out first bevore purchasing a QU.
In my opinion the ui24r has the better user interface for recording and playback.
Switching between live and soundcheck mode is just on click on the ui24r, on the QU you have to re-patch the channel inputs manually or by loading different I/O libraries.
Playback options and browsing (multitrack) playback files are just one click away from the ui mainpage. On the QU you have to navigate through the utilities page. I’m not sure if you even can rename your multitrack-sessions.
[edit]
Multitrack recording on ui24r is on usb device vs. sd card on QU.
Regarding the recording and playback options I liked the ui24r more. But as I mentioned, I needed somekind of hardware controls for my situtation (soundguy and musician in one).
I remixed some recordings from my ui24r on the QU-5 and for my feelings it sound from the QU is better.
Thanks for the input! Like you I am doing double duty and want real faders and FX knobs so I am not jumping/scrolling around between screens. The only thing I want from the internal recording are clean tracks that have proper gain and can later be loaded into my DAW for mixing. I will not be using any of the effects from the QU or volume levels when recording, only in the monitor mixes which I am hoping the QU tactial controls will make easier when everyone is yelling for this or that. In general I do not play the mix back when I am recording a large band session. If I need to do that I would likely just run everything through usb-c and record using the DAW where I am assuming I can just send it back to the QU via chanels 1&2 for playback without any fuss? This is what I do now and how I would also use the QU for overdubbing sessions. Also can the QU record internally and at the same time externally via USB-C? Glad to hear confirmation on the sound quality, any coments on specificly what you thing is better than the UI24R? Thanks again!
Thanks for the input. It got me thinking hard about channel count. As it turns out the two stereo channels are game changers since they are perfect to route my SPD-SX Pro through. My worst case senario never had me using all 32 channels anyway. I just wanted a little room to shove a couple more people in my small studio (not a good idea). What this all boils down to is a QU-6 with room to spare, more faders and $1000 less for a full 96kHz solution out to the DAW if I want it. Maybe someday they will release a DX84 if I need more channels. Thanks getting me to doubt myself!