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[Andrew Broughton]

Gonna piss off the S series early adopters methinks...

[richard_cooper]

I see there's now a "C-series". Other than a more compact surface, I'd like to know what the differences are.

http://www.allen-heath.com/dlive-home/

On first look, only real differences other than more compact units are a reduction in I/O so "only" one 128x128 slot on surface and racks and only onset of DX expander ports on the mix racks instead of 2. Just noticed, also, they're only single built in PSUs not redundant like the big brother.

I'd hoped there was going to be a replacement of the R72 from the iLive series. Very interesting....

[Don T. Williams]

Richard, you are correct.  The PSU's are built in and not hot swappable in the C series surfaces and the CDM series MixRacks.  It's not a replacement for the S series.  The S series is still a heck of a lot of board for the $$$$, and at $21,500.00 list for the C3500 dual touch screen and CDM64 64 X 32 MixRack, this is seriously powerful.

[richard_cooper]

Richard, you are correct.  The PSU's are built in and not hot swappable in the C series surfaces and the CDM series MixRacks.  It's not a replacement for the S series.  The S series is still a heck of a lot of board for the $$$$, and at $21,500.00 list for the C3500 dual touch screen and CDM64 64 X 32 MixRack, this is seriously powerful.

And on further examination, I'm slightly wrong on one point, and notice another. There is the same "DX" expander count on the mix racks but they are single link, i.e. not redundant. The same goes for the gigaACE link between the surface and the mix rack. Ultimately then quiet a difference between the original and C series, a lot like the original iLive vs T-series.

[Scott Holtzman]

Andrew, according to the Pro Sound News item, dual touch screen 24 fader surface with 64 X 32 mix engine is $21,500.00.  If that's correct, that is a significant price reduction from the current S series surfaces and mix engines.

Between that and an Digico SD-9 these are two super solid choices in that market space.  To me both are a big step up from the Yamaha and Midas offerings at that price point.

[Jeff Simpson]

... surface with 64 X 32 mix engine ...

As a point of clarification, the engine is always 128 x 64; it's the amount of IO that varies with each rack (i.e. 64 x 32, 48 x 24, etc).

[Don T. Williams]

Jeff, thanks for the clarification.  Again just another point about how powerful this platform is, how much of a value it is, and how digital mixing has progressed.

[Aisle 6]

It would have been nice to see the PSU still field swappable. Non redundant makes sense for price point, but the use of the same PSU's would have been a smarter move as production houses who own d-live could own spare PSU's and at least field swap them. That is pretty disappointing, although the rest of the feature set seems pretty well thought out for the price. I already know some folks who are buying the DM rack and the c-series surface. Saving some coin that way, while keeping up some level of redundancy for the brain.

[Andrew Broughton]

It wold have been nice to see the PSU still field swappable. Non redundant makes sense for price point, but the use of the same PSU's would have been a smarter move as production houses who own d-live could own spare PSU's and at least field swap them. That is pretty disappointing, although the rest of the feature set seems pretty well thought out for the price. I already know some folks who are buying the DM rack and the c-series surface. Saving some coin that way, while keeping up some level of redundancy for the brain.

The only PSUs I've ever seen fail in all my years of Pro audio (which are considerable) are the huge PSUs used by the big analog consoles, chinese wall-warts, and computer power supplies.
I've never seen a power supply fail in a digital console, but still people send them out with redundant supplies. (and often without UPSs surprisingly!)

Almost everything else in the rigs fail more often and should have redundancy before worrying about a modern, quality switching power supply. Really, the consoles themselves crash or fail more often than their power supplies do.

[Kevin Maxwell]

The only PSUs I've ever seen fail in all my years of Pro audio (which are considerable) are the huge PSUs used by the big analog consoles, chinese wall-warts, and computer power supplies.
I've never seen a power supply fail in a digital console, but still people send them out with redundant supplies. (and often without UPSs surprisingly!)

Almost everything else in the rigs fail more often and should have redundancy before worrying about a modern, quality switching power supply. Really, the consoles themselves crash or fail more often than their power supplies do.

I wish I could say the same thing. We had a digital console that has dual power supplies and one of them died and it loaded down the other supply and shut down the console. One supply was on the UPS and the other one was on direct power. And this console had to be disassembled to get at the power supplies. We changed the bad one out and everything was good again. This was an Avid SC48 installed in a church.

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