Cacophony Forums
Unofficial Mackie User Forums => DL1608/DL806/DL32R/ProDX Mixers => Topic started by: stevegarris on February 22, 2016, 06:17:42 PM
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I have a friend who works for a sound company, telling me I need to dump my Mackie board due to its poor sonic quality. He suggests the X series Behringer products will produce a far superior sound (or the A&H Qu series). My question to any that have run both boards, is this true and to what extent?
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That's BS - The Mackie DL1608 is a great sounding mixer. Yes, I've heard both. I have a friend that swears that a Sonic Maximizer is the greatest thing ever - he's an idiot too.
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I haven't hear the Behringer mixer, but I have a friend who has one, and he loved the sound of my DL32R. I love it, too.
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I have both, sound wise I don't think there's anything in it though the Berry reverbs are better (but I think the DL ones are perfectly usable in the kind of live setting the DL is intended for, you ain't gonna be running the Glastonbury Pyramid stage with one anytime soon, not even a DL32R TBH).
A pro sound guy for an a-list folk band used my DL on a gig I supplied PA for (so he's a client, rather than a mate) and was very impressed with the sound, including the reverbs. Mackie's Onyx pre's have a good rep in their price range as have the X32's Midas designed mic pre's. We're talking relatively budget mixers here, if a DigiCo didn't sound better I'd be asking why, and both are generally considered better then the erstwhile industry standard 'budget' (though a considerable bigger budget than my X32/DL1608's) Yamaha LS9.
Ignore your mate, he's just playing 'one-upmanship' games (I was going to say wi11y waving :)).
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I have both. With my pa the Mackie sounds a little warmer with the EQ set flat but I can't tell the difference once the EQ is adjusted.
The preamps in both mixers are probably only a few dollars worth of parts - a lot more is spent on marketing!
Master Fader is much more user friendly than x32 mix.
Cheers
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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The Mackie sounds astonishingly good given it's a Mackie, behringer hmmmm!
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it is laughable that someone is advised to throw away their Mackie mixer and buy a Behringer,
if they only knew how stupid that makes them look
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The Mackie sounds astonishingly good given it's a Mackie
Why the qualification? I think the DL1608/DL32R preamps and converters sound as good as any. Have you ever had the "fun" of making a high end pro Yamaha mixer sound good? Oy Vey those preamps can be brutal if you don't leave LOTS of headroom :( .
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The Mackie sounds astonishingly good given it's a Mackie
Why the qualification? I think the DL1608/DL32R preamps and converters sound as good as any. Have you ever had the "fun" of making a high end pro Yamaha mixer sound good? Oy Vey those preamps can be brutal if you don't leave LOTS of headroom :( .
Come on, I was being complementary to Mackie for once... +100 on Yamaha pre-amps, I have made some serious bad farting sounds with them, I have especially bad memories of a PM4000. I thought I had blown the speakers (huge turbosound TM something system, not mine) until i lowered the gain on the double bass at a festival back in analogue days.
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I've been using my DL1608 since September 2014. The Onyx preamps are very tolerant of being pushed. I find them quite clean. I left a MixWiz for the DL1608. There was nothing wrong with the MixWiz and I did like it. I just wanted the ability to save configurations, because I do a lot of different things and wanted to simplify my setup times. Now during that time, Mackie has upped the functionality of the mixer so much. I'm quite happy with it.
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Before getting the DL 32 we were using a Mackie 12FX pro. I have the dbx P2 drive rack as well. I noticed that the DL sounded a little more 'brittle' than the 12FX. I was playing just my keyboard through the PA in the garage and it was noticeable difference. Same drive rack settings. When we are out on a gig both systems sound great but with all the roar going on you know who can tell what? My sound engineer friends says "just turn down the treble".
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I have a friend who works for a sound company.................
:lol: :facepalm: :P
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The Mackie sounds astonishingly good given it's a Mackie, behringer hmmmm!
Nowt wrong with the X32 range...... Or the DLs.
Master Fader is much more user friendly than x32 mix.
I've been trying MF4 this weekend and am finding it less user friendly than MF2 (which I use all the time so not really surprising). There's a hell of a lot of scrolling with the extra buss and DCA faders. Behringer's tab based paradigm makes sense when you have as many channels and other stuff as the X32 (10 pages of 8 faders..... I'm still learning it mind you and not used it properly in anger yet). I'll maybe have a play with the DL32R demo just out of interest to see how it handles the extra faders.
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VIEW GROUPS
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Master Fader versions past 2.x are a serious jump up on functionality with additional tools which might confuse some. If you really wanted a simple mixer, you should have spent less than $300. the Mackie DL mixers are a serious step up in functionality and complexity. Live with it of move away from digital mixers. (I suspect more digital mixers will get software upgrades that increase complexity too.)
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Thanks everyone. You've confirmed my belief that there is no difference in the sound quality between the 2 boards. I didn't want this to turn into a bashing of my friend, who is a studio guy that I believe has been thrown into live audio very recently. He's very young and has a lot to learn, but this guy mixes stadium shows on an L-Acoustics array using Midas boards - gear that I have never had access to.
From this post I read 6 of you that agree that the DL sounds just as good, and 1 stating it might be a little thin sounding. I too came from a Mixwiz, and there was no doubt in my mind that the DL sounded better. I also use 2.x on my system, and 3.x on a club installed board. For my mixing needs, 2.x is much better, but I'm running an iPad 2. This year I think I'm going to pick up an Air2, and I might consider the DL32 as my next step up.
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VIEW GROUPS
That may be an answer, I hadn't thought of using view groups in that way, nice one Dan :)
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Thanks everyone. You've confirmed my belief that there is no difference in the sound quality between the 2 boards. I didn't want this to turn into a bashing of my friend, who is a studio guy that I believe has been thrown into live audio very recently. He's very young and has a lot to learn, but this guy mixes stadium shows on an L-Acoustics array using Midas boards - gear that I have never had access to.
From this post I read 6 of you that agree that the DL sounds just as good, and 1 stating it might be a little thin sounding. I too came from a Mixwiz, and there was no doubt in my mind that the DL sounded better. I also use 2.x on my system, and 3.x on a club installed board. For my mixing needs, 2.x is much better, but I'm running an iPad 2. This year I think I'm going to pick up an Air2, and I might consider the DL32 as my next step up.
I have to say I have a problem with Behringer. In the past a number of their rubbish products have left me deeply in the s**t so I may be a little biased but I have mixed on pretty much every mixer around and the DL1608 really does sound surprisingly good. I often have to use X32's and they don't actually sound bad but I do find them a bit one dimensional, sort of "whatever". They are also horrifically hard to get you're head around if you need to mess with routing etc.
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If a company can be said to have turned itself around in the last few years I think Behringer is that company. I've had both good and bad experiences with older Berry products but if you buy a mixer that costs less than a cheap lunch you have to accept that it won't last (or preform well either, though some actually did). Berry used (and still do) sell some cheap kit and some of it does not reach a professional standard but the X32 range does with knobs on (and has shaken the industry to the roots). Mackie, since GM left, has also had it's ups and downs. Both companies now make gear that we would have killed for 25 years ago. Both the DL series and Berry's famous Xs offer far more than we could have dreamed of back then and with much higher reliability than most of those analogue desks (even much more expensive ones) did.
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pass this link on to anyone who thinks the DL has no bottom end or "warmth"
https://www.facebook.com/Mackie/posts/10153517823616145
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very well articulated Sam !
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Hi Folks,
A local venue has a QU16 and I have mixed a few shows on it.
I had no problems with the audio quality.
To say it is better or worse than the Mackies I would need to do a direct comparison.
Have yet to mix a show on Behr X32.
I have mixed a great many shows on Yamaha 01V96 and LS9 and they were certainly serviceable.
The Mackies are my preference for Ipad interface.
Thanks and good health, Weogo
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I have an Allen & Heath Qu24 console with an AR2412 CAT 5 stage box and if there was a way to instantly switch from Mackie to A&H there would be no difference.
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Thanks everyone. You've confirmed my belief that there is no difference in the sound quality between the 2 boards. I didn't want this to turn into a bashing of my friend, who is a studio guy that I believe has been thrown into live audio very recently. He's very young and has a lot to learn, but this guy mixes stadium shows on an L-Acoustics array using Midas boards - gear that I have never had access to.
From this post I read 6 of you that agree that the DL sounds just as good, and 1 stating it might be a little thin sounding. I too came from a Mixwiz, and there was no doubt in my mind that the DL sounded better. I also use 2.x on my system, and 3.x on a club installed board. For my mixing needs, 2.x is much better, but I'm running an iPad 2. This year I think I'm going to pick up an Air2, and I might consider the DL32 as my next step up.
If he's used to Midas digital boards when doing the stadium mixes, he'll feel more at home on an X32 -- especially if he currently uses the Midas M32.
For years, I wanted a Midas analog board, but then I started mixing on Allen & Heath GL-series boards and never looked back until I down-sized everything.
Cheers!
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I own both an X32 and just recently the DL32R.
It's hard to compare them, but for me it's easy to make them both sound great. I've used the X32 many times, and the DL32R only once, so take my opinion for what it's worth.
I don't know how the two mixers process the audio, but I have felt like the X32 was running out of headroom, as if it doesn't use 32-bit floating point DSP. As long as you keep the levels low, it's fine. On the DL32 I had the levels up relatively high and I never felt like it was running out of head room.
The reverbs are ok on both. People say they suck, but I guess I'm not that picky.
The preamps seem fine on both, not noisy and don't clip easily.
Which one can I make sound better? I don't want to sound incompetent, but if one is easier to use, then I can make it sound better. The Mackie is VERY easy to use, but has a very limited amount of DSP options. The X32 has more DSP options, but they are harder to insert in the heat of battle.
Tweaking the EQ or compression on Master fader is much faster than on the the X32 or its iPad app. Therefore, I can get better sound out of the Mackie.
My plan was to buy the DL32 for small events alone, and then on large scale events use it as a stage box with my X32. "There's no substitute for physical fasders" was my original thought. Now after being exclusively iPad for a weekend conference, I'm pretty sure I can live without the physical faders. Mackie really knocked it out of the park with the Master Fader design. Just be sure you have a current iPad! Old iPads suck with Master Fader. I used my Air 2 which felt perfect, my old iPad 2 with was REALLY sluggish, and an iPad Retena which was even worse than the older iPad 2.
As other have said, both mixers are budget products that perform well beyond their price point. With either mixer you have more power than was imaginable at even triple the price.
I think I can sell my X32, its case, the Dante card and little-lite for much more than the cost of the DL32. The X32 is great, but can't get it into my car in its case by myself. For that reason alone, I want to sell it. But it served me well, and sounded awesome, so It'll have a fond place in heart.
One little note about the DL1608... I have one of those too. The lack of digitally controlled mic pres really crippled that product, and the iPad recording let me down once. I never loved it like I do the DL32. If I can't get more then $300 for the DL1608, I'll keep it, but if it's worth more than that, I'll get rid of it too. I might even part ways with my dusty old, but still working Mackie 1642 VLZ. My wife will be very happy.
~Jay
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Don't know about the X32, but I've been using the DL1608 for nearly 3 years now. It has the most tolerant input pre-amps I've even had. (Over 40+ years.) Don't really know if that's normal but I'm happy with it.
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I've had a DL1608 for over three years now and have used it on (probably) 80+ shows. I also have an X32 Rack and X32 Compact. Regarding sound quality, any of them can provide a mix good enough to please even the pickiest listeners IMO.
The DL1608 is my goto for many gigs due to it's simplicity and small footprint. I use MF Classic on it for the same reasons. If I need more sophistication then one or both of the X32's will get the gig.