So this is less of a technical question and more of an observation based on the US market.
About eight months ago I began looking into digital audio consoles. For this organization (higher ed events support) budgets aren’t easy to come by, so this constituted a considerable investment. I also work with the recording department at our music conservatory (which is very well off) and three years ago they had purchased an M7CL. It has been a fine console, but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for, and had a bit of a cumbersome workflow. Before our budget had been set, I looked into a GLD system and found it nice, but lacking the I/O we required.
When our price point was set at ~20k, it was almost assumed we would be getting an M7CL-48ES. Remote I/O was important to us, and the SC48 Stagebox came in several grand above our price point, not including case or cabling.
Long story short, I took another look at Allen and Heath and discovered iLive. For just under 21k we were able to get a T112, iDR48, flight/road cases, 200ft of cabling, littlelites, power distro, and a few other basic accessories.
Today, I heard a friend talking about the new CL3 they were about to order, and how it, with remote I/O, and flight case, was “a steal” at $29k.
What I have come to love about iLive is that it is not locked down, it is not neutered just because of your control surface, and it has plenty of DSP power to spare. I was working on an LS9 yesterday and discovered individual matrixes cannot be recall safed, only all or none. Why? Because the board costs less.
So first: Thank you for making one of the most impressive values in live sound today, hands down.
And second: I fundamentally don’t undersand why the pricing is so low. I get all the major trade magazines, there are no iLive ads I mention the system to engineers who have been working in the US for 20 years, they’ve never heard of it. I think most of us would consider the T series underpriced, but I would gladly have paid 7% more for the console in exchange for future developments. Even enhanced marketing so I have less trouble with rider acceptance (which usually amounts to ‘i’ve never heard of that, i’m going to assume it’s bad’)
Again, thank you for making such a fantastic product.
] The desk may be too cheap but don’t tell everyone or the prices will rise.
