[TJCornishParticipant]

Hey Nicola – thanks so much for this template. It was almost perfect for what we needed – the only modification I made was to remove the mix assign buttons (don’t need my users leaving land mines for the next person). You saved me hours of work.

[TJCornishParticipant]

+1. I’ve had to do similar monkey business.

[TJCornishParticipant]

I am not an expert, but I don’t think you can chain a SLink device through a DX port. Everything I’ve read says that DX ports are 32×32, and SLink devices require more than that. The GX rack has a SLink port input and DX port outputs.

[TJCornishParticipant]

Adding a second GX rack for additional FOH inputs requires a GigaAce card, apparently – the SLink port to one GX rack and the other GX rack to a GigaAce card. I presume you could use one of these with a DX device for somewhat less cost than the GX rack – a GX rack on stage via GigaAce and a DX module at FOH connected to the SLink port, but this starts getting pretty expensive – the $11,400 Avantis plus $3600 GX rack plus a $1000 GigaAce card puts you at $16,000 not counting your additional FOH IO module. This is within spitting distance of DLive C Class – the DLive surfaces have DX ports built-in.

I disagree with GCumbee that the problem is lack of non-XLR IO on the surface, however I agree that there should have been a second SLink port built-in to the Avantis without having to pay a $1000 tax for this. I use the expander port on my GLD for my wireless rack which has an AR804 in it. That would have been nice to carry over. A workaround is running a second Cat cable from the GX rack on stage back to FOH, but that’s a bit silly.

[TJCornishParticipant]

Oops – that didn’t work. Trying again: https://www.allen-heath.com/ahproducts/io-gx4816/

[TJCornishParticipant]

The rack compatibility and quantity showing that the Avantis can handle two 48×16 racks is here:

GX4816

[TJCornishParticipant]

There’s nothing wrong with 1/8” to XLR adapters if they are wired correctly – phantom power is between the signal pins and ground. If you wire the sleeve to pin 3 of both XLR connectors, and the tip and ring to pin 2 of the left and right XLRs respectively you will not have any phantom power issues. You don’t have any isolation this way, but it’s no worse than a dedicated 1/8” jack on the board.

XLR is significantly more flexible than any other input type, and the Avantis has more on-surface IO than the board it is replacing (GLD), so I guess I’m satisfied for my purposes. The larger question is if the Avantis offers enough features at a low enough price to justify it. As you mentioned, the SQ is a powerful board.

The other issue is the closeness in price of the Avantis to the DLive. At the moment, MSRP of the Avantis with the 48×16 rack and D-Pack is $15,000 (I’m sure street price will be significantly less than this). You can get into the C2500 DLive surface plus mix rack for not a heck of a lot more than that. I’d like to see this at $10,000 for that package. I suspect it will get there – I bought my first GLD very early on and paid ~$10,000 for the GLD-80 system with expanders. In 2015 I bought a GLD-112 with a promo for a free AR2412 for just over half that amount.

[TJCornishParticipant]

I think you’ll find that Avantis is following the path of most mid-tier mixers to go to XLR-only IO. This is true of the Yamaha CL series (only 8 XLR inputs on the surface and no RCA or 1/4″) and others. If you like all your IO on the surface, the SQ is for you.

There are lots of ways to get playback IO to XLR – various stereo DI boxes from Radial, Whirlwind, and others, or driverless USB audio interfaces like the excellent and inexpensive Peavey USB-P that give you real balanced line outputs so you’re not stuck using the noisy, fragile 1/8″ output of your computer.

I would love to trade up my GLDs for Avantises (Avantii?). I am interested to see how the price shakes out once the tariff issue is settled and once we’re past version 1.0 of the software. Right now I’m much more concerned with the lack of the editor and no mention (that I’ve heard of yet) of remote control apps for FOH or musician use than I am about surface IO configuration.

Nothing is free – A&H has to strike a balance on what to spend the BOM on. If most users only need a small amount of local IO, loading the surface up with unused inputs adds unnecessary cost which gets multiplied up the supply chain and passed on to us customers.

I don’t argue that a second SLink port on the surface would have been welcome.

[TJCornishParticipant]

I think you’re being a bit over-dramatic. The Avantis is the successor to the GLD which only had 8 surface inputs – four of which were XLR, and four were RCA, which I argue is way more annoying than if they were 8 XLRs – it’s a lot easier to adapt a line in to an XLR input than it is to try to use a mic into an RCA input. The Avantis has 12 on the surface. Even the DLive only has 6 inputs on the surface. Both of these models are designed to be used with remote IO. If you need more IO at FOH than is available on the surface, then add more. The Avantis supports two GX4816 racks so you can have 60 inputs at FOH and 48 more on stage (limited by the maximum IO count of the board, of course), among other configurations.

Or, if the SQ fits your needs better, then use that.

[TJCornishParticipant]

Thank you for a great update!

We are using three new features:
– MCAs to allow DCAs to affect monitors
– Talkback groups
– ABCD input switching

All of these are very helpful. Thanks!

[TJCornishParticipant]

+1

[TJCornishParticipant]

Of course you can do that – every non-crap digital board can do this. Select an input channel, go to the preamp tab, under “source select”, select the physical input you want to use. The default patch is physical input 1 -> input channel 1, etc., but this can easily be changed.

[TJCornishParticipant]

I do understand where the A/D and D/A conversions take place. However, the power ground for the AR and the power ground of the GLD can still be an issue since the shield of the CAT5E cable (if shielded) will connect the two grounds (which could be 200 feet apart worst case)). Then it also depends on the power source for any instruments….. Highly unlikely this is an issue as it is minimized with the AR’s close to the stage. But transformer isolated DI’s are still needed to eliminate ground loops between the instrument and the AR’s. Again, RB stated HISS not Hum, so the PAD and gain setting are 99% more likely an issue. But IF the only change is truly the ethernet cable……

The stagebox has an earth ground connection, and is therefore grounded to stage power, so there’s really no chance of a classic ground-loop issue here due to the snake cable shielding. The surface being on separate power is irrelevant. This is a significant benefit of a digital snake system, not to mention eliminating several thousand feet of analog snake cabling and associated EMI.

[TJCornishParticipant]

The A>D conversion happens in the stagebox, so ground loops (in the conventional analog sense of a hum) cannot happen between the surface and the stagebox. I would look at the pad setting, as suggested above.

[TJCornishParticipant]

Another benefit is you now have a redundant line if you lose your first one, though you may lose your drum feed.

[Author]

Posts