DL vs X32 Sonic Quality

[stevegarris]

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?

[RoadRanger]

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.

[Michael Welter]

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.

[sam.spoons]

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 ).

[Fluddman]

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

[pytchley]

The Mackie sounds astonishingly good given it's a Mackie, behringer hmmmm!

[dpdan]

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

[RoadRanger]

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 .

[pytchley]

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.

[Wynnd]

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.

[Professor]

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".

[James91104]

I have a friend who works for a sound company.................

[sam.spoons]

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.

[dpdan]

VIEW GROUPS

[Wynnd]

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.)