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[Rob Spence]

With the X32s that I owned once I was running a higher channel count they started getting sluggish and the sound quality seemed to get degraded. Almost like more digital sounding not as clear and clean as it is with less channels used. I also had a few guest engineers hear it and thought is was the DSP power of the board being maxed out. I'm not an engineer and maybe DSP is the wrong word. I just know I have never had my Si's act sluggish or sound different because I was running high channel count. Not trying to start a war or disagree with your thoughts.

Ok, devils advocate here... Explain how the mixer knows how many channels you are using? Quiet is as much a valid sound it needs to process as is loud. It takes the same work for the computer (DSP).

What may be, is with many channels into a mix bus, the summing may not be a clean. This was true in the analog mixer world too. High end consoles did a better job of it.



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[Jamin Lynch]

With the X32s that I owned once I was running a higher channel count they started getting sluggish and the sound quality seemed to get degraded. Almost like more digital sounding not as clear and clean as it is with less channels used. I also had a few guest engineers hear it and thought is was the DSP power of the board being maxed out. I'm not an engineer and maybe DSP is the wrong word. I just know I have never had my Si's act sluggish or sound different because I was running high channel count. Not trying to start a war or disagree with your thoughts.

The Soundcraft has "fixed" latency. While the "B" does not. As you add channels, eq, comps ect it slows down the signal flow which can adversely effect the sound quality. Soundcraft latency is fixed at 1mS.

That may be the reason why it seemed to sound sluggish as you added more channels

[Robert Lofgren]

The Soundcraft has "fixed" latency. While the "B" does not. As you add channels, eq, comps ect it slows down the signal flow which can adversely effect the sound quality. Soundcraft latency is fixed at 1mS.

That may be the reason why it seemed to sound sluggish as you added more channels

Huh?!

The only time the latency in some audio path on the x32 changes is when you insert a rack-fx in that path, and this is for that path only. Otherwise the x32 has a fixed latency and it is coherent among all channels and buses.

[Scott Bolt]

I think it is true that some people prefer the sound of the Soundcraft over the X32.  I believe that this is a combination of the default channel eq behavior and the efx engines (especially the verbs).

I personally think that they both sound pretty darned good.  Good enough that a plethora of other factors are going to vastly outweigh any small differences in sound between these two mixers.

While sound quality many not be a differentiator between these two mixers, there are absolutely differences in work flow, channel count capabilities or features that could easily lean someone to one mixer or the other.

[Rob Spence]

The Soundcraft has "fixed" latency. While the "B" does not. As you add channels, eq, comps ect it slows down the signal flow which can adversely effect the sound quality. Soundcraft latency is fixed at 1mS.

That may be the reason why it seemed to sound sluggish as you added more channels

Can you explain how you add channels? It always has all the channels. Some may be quiet.


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[Corey Scogin]

The Soundcraft has "fixed" latency. While the "B" does not. As you add channels, eq, comps ect it slows down the signal flow which can adversely effect the sound quality. Soundcraft latency is fixed at 1mS.

That may be the reason why it seemed to sound sluggish as you added more channels

Jamin, you're usually on point but in this matter you are mistaken. The input to output latency on the X32 is 0.83ms (my measurement) no matter what the channel processing is doing. The only thing that adds latency is the stuff in the FX rack.  If you insert a GEQ or something else from the FX rack, the latency increases.

Here's a thread where this was discussed previously:
http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php?topic=147016.0

[Jamin Lynch]

Jamin, you're usually on point but in this matter you are mistaken. The input to output latency on the X32 is 0.83ms (my measurement) no matter what the channel processing is doing. The only thing that adds latency is the stuff in the FX rack.  If you insert a GEQ or something else from the FX rack, the latency increases.

Here's a thread where this was discussed previously:
http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php?topic=147016.0

That's what I learned at one of my Soundcraft training seminars.

They contend in other brands of consoles that as you "engage" comps, gates, eq's or have more active channels it slows down the signal flow which will effect the sound quality, giving it a more digital sound. Which somebody discribed exactly earlier. The Soundcraft consoles all have a fixed latency no matter how many accessories are engaged. It's the same for the Vi and Studer boards as well.

That didn't come from marketing either.

[Bob Leonard]

Because they use the same DSP's as the Vi and Studer boards. Soundcraft does not use off the shelf DSP's. That being said I might agree that the sound of the x32 being effected is not a function of the DSP on it's own. If the signal degrades at all it will be due to the use of the boards functions combined. Compressors, EQ's, gates, routing, etc. all have an effect on the combined latency. Some boards handle high loads better than others, which is a fact of life. I also agree with those that said the Soundcraft boards sound better, and that's why I own one.

[Mac Kerr]

They contend in other brands of consoles that as you "engage" comps, gates, eq's or have more active channels it slows down the signal flow which will effect the sound quality, giving it a more digital sound. Which somebody discribed exactly earlier. The Soundcraft consoles all have a fixed latency no matter how many accessories are engaged. It's the same for the Vi and Studer boards as well.

AFAIK there are no digital consoles on the market that increase the latency when you engage a channel eq or dynamics processor. Every console I know of is a fixed latency for a given path. Where you get extra latency is in using different path lengths. Input to group to matrix is a longer path than input to matrix. Input to group to stereo to matrix is longer still. Using an insert to add in a processor from an FX rack is longer as well. Adding the eq from the channel strip is not.

Some consoles do "delay compensation" which just raises the latency of all paths to the theoretical maximum you get. On a Midas Pro 2 that makes the analog in to analog out about 8ms vs less than 2ms without compensation.

In the Studer manual they list the added latency for different processors, so I don't think it is a fixed latency, and while the new X processors are not off the shelf, the older series used SHARC processors.

Mac

[Jamin Lynch]

AFAIK there are no digital consoles on the market that increase the latency when you engage a channel eq or dynamics processor. Every console I know of is a fixed latency for a given path. Where you get extra latency is in using different path lengths. Input to group to matrix is a longer path than input to matrix. Input to group to stereo to matrix is longer still. Using an insert to add in a processor from an FX rack is longer as well. Adding the eq from the channel strip is not.

Some consoles do "delay compensation" which just raises the latency of all paths to the theoretical maximum you get. On a Midas Pro 2 that makes the analog in to analog out about 8ms vs less than 2ms without compensation.

In the Studer manual they list the added latency for different processors, so I don't think it is a fixed latency, and while the new X processors are not off the shelf, the older series used SHARC processors.

Mac

Just so I can be better educated.

Is what Soundcraft claims misleading, incorrect, off base, marketing propaganda or what?

[ProSoundWeb Community]