With the price of QU-SB how can they justify price of ar2412?

[Mbirame]

I am currently using a QU-16 and we have run out of enough i/o so I have been renting a QU-PAC as a submixer into the QU-16. Works well enough, but I’d like to simplify things so I have been looking at just using a QU-pac and the ar2412. It’s frustrating that it is over $300 more than a QU-sb which has more features, more i/o and more power. How can they justify that? I’d just get two QU-sb and network them together (I may still do that if I can get my monitor feeds working correctly with that configuration). I wish you could use a QU-SB as a D snake slave to take the place of the ar2412. Slave one to another one or slave one to a QU-pac.

I wonder if there are hardware limitations to that or if it could be done with an update?

[Dick Rees]

Two words: economic reality.

Additionally, you’re looking at it from possibly the wrong direction and asking the wrong question. You could just as easily consider it from the viewpoint that of the entire Qu line with the additional stage boxes (which come from the GLD line) having the two newest members (Qu-pac and SB) come in as windfall values, then ask, “How can they offer a 32-channel core for so little?” Consider which came first, which is an individual development and which is an existing product re-packaged in a compact format (Qu32 : Qu-sb).

Can you clarify why you’d need two 32 channel units to address your monitor needs? I’m having a hard time imagining a scenario which can’t be addressed from a single unit.

[Mbirame]

Well in any case, the “economic reality” is that they offer a product with more power, more io, and…just more…for a lot less.

I don’t need two 32 channel units (though I wouldn’t question why someone would-there are myriad uses out there in the world). I need one 32 channel unit, but it is cheaper to get two QU-sbs than to get one qu-sb and expander. What I mean by whether I can make my monitor needs work with two qu-sbs is whether I can do what I need to do by having two separate mixers with 12 out each (two QU-SBs) vs a single QU-pac (or SB) and expander.

One advantage that I can see with the expander is that gives me 8 additional inputs that I can have ready to go with a scene switch.

[GCumbee]

FYI. You cannot network 2 QU-SB. One would have to be a submixer to the other.

For all the trouble you should have just bought a QU32 and been done with it.

[Dick Rees]

It appears that you may have “under-bought” in the first place if your needs have been consistent from the beginning. In such cases you often end up spending more in the long run than if you had ” over-bought”. But hey…that’s life. Accept what is tempered with what you’ve learned and get ready to retrench. If you’re lucky you’ll get it right the second time around.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Product pricing depends on many things, often marketing driven…

[Mbirame]

Well considering the QU-SB didn’t exist when I bought the QU-16 there is that. 😉

Don’t get me wrong-I LOVE the QU-16. It has served us really beautifully for the last year and a half or so. We require everything to be racked, so a QU-32 doesn’t work for us. I know we are not the normal use case for the QU series, but we use it for controlling all our in-ear mixes (pre-programmed in) and we run some tracks from our DAW live and everything is sent out in various mixes to the FOH. We only occasionally run our own FOH and in those cases we have a scene set up that reroutes everything to a LR output. Individual songs are set to scenes and those are sent over USB sending program changes. That was my original thought of networking two heads together-to send MIDI over Network to have both units change scenes together. I realize that you cant network one unit to the other, but I thought I could have both receiving the same networked info from a hub.

As our show has progressed, we have decided to mic our own instruments (we play several-up to seven-giant marimbas mixed with percussion, vocals, and synths, etc). We created mic array systems that mount under the marimbas and those are currently going into a QU-PAC and sending submixes into our QU-16 (for in-ears) and submixes out to the FOH. It is amazing how this has cleaned up the show since we were able to dial in the gates and low cuts for each specific instrument and now instead of the soundguy having to set up 29 mics and boom stands we just hand him 11 XLR cables with one instrument per cable. It has been glorious, and with this change our i/o needs exploded.

At the end of the day, I’m pretty certain that I’m just going to go for the QU-PAC (I might talk myself in to the QU-SB) and ar2412 because on one song we play a different set of instruments and so being able to have those all plugged in to the extra 8 inputs of the expanders and just do a scene switch to make those active is going to be awesome.

[MarkPAman]

With two Qu-SB / Qu-Pac you don’t gain access to the matrix or group outputs. Running monitors and effects becomes more complicated. Running from one desk is much easier than from two.

Prices where you are may be different, but quick look at current prices here, shows that the AB168 is about the same price as the Qu-SB, (and the AR84 quite a bit less, though doesn’t get you to 29 inputs). My dealer was able to offer me a reasonable discount when buying a desk and box (+ CAT5, rack rails & lamp) together as well.

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