QU-16 vs. QU-Pac

[JakeParticipant]

@[XAP}Bob No WiFi router is of course our worst nightmare. I spoke to Dominic at American Music & Sound the distributor for A&H in the US, asking about the QU line and the QU-Pac in particular and he strongly recommended using security on the routerfor the following reason. He mentioned that sometimes routers fail when someone spots our network and tries to join it. He said it will most likely simply end our connection with the mixer but that sometimes it will damage the router. A feature suggestion I might make would be some sort of hardwired connectivity to a laptop or a USB adapter to a tablet, in case the router fails. I’d really to make the switch to a rack case like the QU-Pac, but would very much not like to be dead in the water before or during a gig.

@klaus The difference in footprint between a QU-16 out of the case and a QU-Pac mounted in a rack case isn’t much. I have Gator G-Mix-1921-8-TSA polyethylene case for the QU-16. My biggest challenge is not the space on stage as I use an of stage table most of the time, but the space it takes in my vehicle. To have the QU-Pac onstage would save a step in that I would not need to setup the 3′ foot square table as well as shorten cable runs somewhat.

[debzdoodleParticipant]

I made my network invisible which helps-It never shows as an option on folks phones.

BTW- I use a shallow 4 space rack for my QU-PAC which takes up very little space. I have my 10 space rolling iem rack (transmitters, drawer for packs and miscellaneous) on the bottom, my 4 space rack with my wifi pieces for sound and lighting on top of that and my QU-PAC rack on top of that. They all lock in together and I roll the whole thing into the corner on stage where it takes up very little space.
When I use the QU16, I have to use a table for it so just not as neat.

[[XAP]BobParticipant]

I rarely had problems with the wifi – then it literally ‘just didn’t work’ – no power lights, nothing.
At that point I was glad for the 16, but how likely is it? How much would it ruin your day? How hard is it to carry a spare, ready to go?

I’d like a 1u access point, although ideally it would also sport three LAN connections, in order to trunk dSnake and the control channel over a single gigabit connection down my cat5 ‘multicore’. I’d then buy three – one for each end and one as a spare…

[MarkPAmanParticipant]

Seen this Bob?

https://nowsonic.com/en/products/live/stage-router/

https://nowsonic.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Nowsonic-Stage-Router-Manual.pdf

At about £175 it’s quite tempting………

[audioklaParticipant]

ok, but I plan to sell my analog multicore and stagebox. So the Qu-16 stays on stage. And then, if the router broke down, never mind, if I have a Qu-16 or a Qu-Pac on stage. For that reason, I have a 2nd router with me. Normally I use an apple and cheap TP-Link as a backup. This might do.
My only thoughts are to keep my Qu-16 and put it on stage or to sell it and buy a QU-Pac.
Thank you all for your posts. Very useful.
@debzdoodle: Sounds interesting. I want to go in that direction, if I buy me a QU-Pac. Do you have a picture of your setup?
@jake: Space in the vehicle is also an important point and I can put my IEM, wireless etc. and the QU-Pac in one rack and keep the cables ready.

Do you have any other advantages of the QU-Pac vs. the QU-16???

Do you have any experiences with android tablets instead of the IPad?

[[XAP]BobParticipant]

At £175 *3 it is less so, and doesn’t do the VLAN trunking.

I’d need to get two additional switches (to do the trunking over the dSnake cable) and possibly a WAP for FOH – although the above should be easily capable of covering anywhere I care about – so maybe just add two vlan switches…

Makes it more like £200
And that’s still not too bad – except that I just lost the convenience of a single device, so I may as well put the VLN switches (and a spare at each location, and a WAP (at each location) onto a shelf for ~£80

If you are going to charge £175 for a piece of hardware it needs to do something valuable (like be a single box solution).
A 1U box with a couple of Ethercon connectors and my total cost is approaching £100, but the “single unit” box is now easier to use (leave the cable plugged into the dSnake under, so it’s one cable in and raise the antenna)

The other end gets a small Vlan switch in place of a WAP and one extra cable…

[David HaughtonKeymaster]

Hi All, one important thing that may have been missed here is Qu-Pac’s Qu-32 Core.
With an added AR2412 AudioRack you can expand up to 32 mic pres and 24 outs!

I use a shallow rack case and find that my Qu-Pac takes up 1/2 as much space as Qu-16.

Firmware v1.8 introduced a lot more setup functions and control from Qu-Pad which means you don’t need to spend so much time running back and forth to the mixer.

David Giga’s Mixing Station Qu is the most comprehensive Android app that we’ve seen so far and is available from Google Play or Amazon Appstore: https://dev-core.org/mixing-station/mixing-station-qu/

If your tablet device goes down mid-show, you still have control from Qu-Pac’s touchscreen. You could even set up a very simple but powerful mix interface using Qu-Control if necessary!

HTH. Cheers!
Harry.

[[XAP]BobParticipant]

Spotted it – the channel count *in this case* isn’t an issue.

Shame you can’t mount them back to back in a rack – but you’d lose access to the QuPAC ports….

[audioklaParticipant]

thank you, @harry A&H for this facts.
Is it possible to expand the Q-16 with an AR0804 or can you only use it with the QU-Pac?

and what about a IPad with additional monitor?

You could even set up a very simple but powerful mix interface using Qu-Control if necessary!

@harry: What do you mean with this?

Sorry, for my newbie questions

[debzdoodleParticipant]

Here is a photo of what I am using – the bottom rack is 12 space, I thought it was a 10. It all brings the QU-PAC up to a nice workable height . Of course shorter racks would make the whole thing much shorter if you prefer.

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[audioklaParticipant]

@debzdoodle: Thanks a lot for your photo

[[XAP]BobParticipant]

You can’t extend a QU16, but you can give it remote I/O

[David HaughtonKeymaster]

Hi Klaus, Bob’s right of course, to clarify Qu-16, 24 & 32 can only handle their designated number of channels whether these are local, remote or USB I/O.
Qu-Pac is able to expand using AudioRacks from 16 mic and 12 XLR out, up to 32 mic and 24 XLR out, depending on which audio racks you use.
HTH.
Thanks.
Harry.

[JakeParticipant]

@harry. Thanks for the info but I’m confused. The AB168 adds 16 mic preamps and 8 outs which gives us 20 outs not 24, correct?

We’ve discussed the possibility of using the QU-Pac’s touch screen to continue setting up or mixing the gig if the wifi router fails, the question is how convenient is it?

Also I don’t understand the QU-Control reference either.

@debzdoodle thanks for the photo.

@audiokla I have only used an iPad Air and have yet to tryout Android apps for QU mixers.

PS I updated my firmware and am looking forward to trying it out tonight.

Thanks everyone,
Jake

[mervakaParticipant]

Adding preamps does not give you extra DSP horsepower. The Qu-Pac has 32 channels of DSP horsepower, but only 16 preamps.

Similarly, it does not give you extra busses and output processing, only extra output sockets that you can route to an output processor of your choice.

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