Hi Allen & Heath,
I’ve been curious about the Xone:96 Audio Sync Out ever since the mixer was released.
The 3.5 mm output has been described in the documentation as being intended for “future ALLEN&HEATH accessories”, while currently functioning as an additional pre-master record output.
It’s now been roughly 8 years since the Xone:96 was released, and as far as I’m aware, no accessory making use of this connection has ever appeared.
I’ve contacted support about this several times over the years, roughly every couple of years, but unfortunately never received a clear answer.
So I’d really like to know:
What was the Audio Sync Out originally designed for?
Was an external sync / FX / audio-to-clock device actually planned?
Was that project cancelled at some point?
And is there still any possibility of Allen & Heath releasing something that makes use of this port?
Personally, what I would love to see is an audio-to-clock device that can derive BPM and phase from the mixer output and generate MIDI clock / DIN sync / modular clock. That would make the Audio Sync Out genuinely useful for hybrid DJ and live setups without requiring software to act as the clock master.
I’m not really looking for another explanation of what the socket currently outputs — I’m specifically interested in what the intended accessory was and what happened to that idea.
After eight years, I think it would be really interesting to finally get some background on this.
Thanks!