QU-24 + AB168

[Pete]

I just got my QU-24 yesterday. Love it. I bought it from Sam Ash Music. I also asked about an AB168 since I am fed up with carrying a heavy snake cable. The store manager told me that he had never sold an AB168 and nor had any Sam Ash store anywhere in the USA. Does anyone know why this might be? The device looks great on websites and on YouTube. Can people please tell me that they use and trust this device before I buy it.

Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

I use a 2412 rather than an 168, but they are fantastic.

[hobsound]

It just means they are not up on the A&H product line.
I own 2 of them, I use one at the front of the stage for vocals and monitors, and then run a Cat5 cable to the back of the stage to another box for drums, instruments, and monitors towards the back of the stage. Also run a ME1 for drummers who use IEMs.
The Qu mixers allow you to route inputs anyway you want, so it works out very well for the bands I work for.

[Pete]

Thanks Gents, I kind of reckoned that the Sam Ash guys were not to clued up on A&H gear. I shall start with one AB168 and move on from there. I am trying hard to reduce the amount of gear that I have to lug to gigs and the thing I hate the most is my outboard rack (8U high). That has now gone. I now have a mixer that is smaller and yet more powerful than my old Mackie CFX20 MkII. The next target is the snake. I really do not want to get back into racks again hence the initial choice of the AB168 over the 2412.

[hobsound]

Welcome to the world of “less is more”.
No more racks for me.
I like the fact that by having 2 of the AB168’s, I have a backup, and if I want to split the stage boxes up so I can run shorter XLR cables, I can do that.
For Qu-16 gigs I leave one unit in the trailer. For Qu-24 gigs I bring them both.
I bought one of the Behringer (actually Klark-Teknik) 50-meter Cat5 snakes, as well as 20-foot and 30-foot Ethercon cables. Very flexible.
Good luck and enjoy your new rig!

[Andreas]

When I built my setup around the Qu32, I exactly had the same question, but I finally decided to went the other road. My stage rack not only contains an AR2412 and an AR84, but also hosts a (line interactive) UPS, a network switch to split dSnake from LAN traffic, a WiFi Router (secondary one, primary one hosted in mixer case) and some rack lights. My whole FOH system is sourced from that UPS and it already safed me twice.
Yes, it is heavy and, yes, I still wish to have an additional AB168 on larger stages but this proofed to be a rock-solid setup for me.

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[Anonymous]

Nice looking rack setup Andreas
So it the UPS the one-U rack under the AR?

[Anonymous]

Is that the TPLink managed switch?
Do you find it sufficiently reliable?

[Andreas]

yes, the 1U Smart UPS SC450 is at the bottom, slightly overpowered and heavy (10kg/22lbs) for this purpose, but the smaller one was out of stock when I configured the rack.
The managed switches are TPLink TL SG105E (50 Euros/pair) seem to work nicely in this setup, at least I never had any problems from dSnake or WiFi connectivity yet. Sole purpose of this setup is to have a second WAP on stage, but in fact my iPad still prefers to connect to the AirPort at FOH. In case of any problem I still could connect directly, so I’m not bothering using more high-grade gear.
Btw: My primary cable is a 60m/180ft Klotz Ramcat Solid Core, pretty stiff but nice specs on the long run.

[Anonymous]

Do have UPS at the Desk as well?

[Andreas]

Nope, but a long power cable from FOH to the stage box parallel to the dSnake. So the APC on stage powers both the stagebox and everything at FOH (Mixer, Notebook, Camera(s), optional FX units etc.).

[Anonymous]

Fair enough.

I often consider pulling a reel alongside the cat5 – but my IT infrastructure brains says “don’t pull power and data together”

[Andreas]

Sure, the single mains phase is asymmetric and potentially could couple into the ethernet cable (only capacitive, no EM!), but since ethernet is a symmetric connection, any induced electrical dirt is transparent for the connection itself (same as with XLR cables running mixed with power and speaker connections on front of most stages).
For the same reason hybrid cables exist which carry power+ethernet+audio+video.

[Anonymous]

I agree – my physics brain says “no problem” and even looked for reasonably priced hybrid cables – but they don’t exist AFAICT

Actually -0 better now than when I last looked:
https://shop.sommercable.com/en/Cables/Bulk-Cables-Hybrid/Hybridkabel-SC-Monocat-110C-500-0151-1.html

[Andreas]

Klotz and other also source hybrid cables in various configurations, but “reasonably priced” rarely meets “hybrid cable”.
From what I remember cost is about 10 Euros/m (depending on cable content). This may make sense in a business environment if you combine power+ethernet+talkbackAudio+DMX in one cable. I’m happy with my two reels. 😉

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