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[Fred Dorado]

Posting for some thoughts as I am having trouble pulling the trigger.

There are a few things going on and I will try and summarize. We are a smaller church around 130 avg attendance. I have been here a little over a year and we are seeing some growth. Our building seats 102, so we have 2 services. Last year we made them identical so no transition.

We are about to start small remodel project that will take several months. We are moving our main bathrooms and creating a new entrance.

While we do that we will be holding Sunday services at the local school, and going to one service (seats about 350-400 for service). Bringing both services together at least for a while. We are also folding the cost of going to the school in the remodel budget.

Because of the size of our building and the desire to be more accessible and in our community we feel called to do Sundays at the school and the bonus of the remodel is we get a trial run. Apparently the bathrooms have needed to be done for 10-15 years. So besides already experiencing a little growth, there will be excitement about getting that done.

We are praying that the school experience (We did it at Easter and it was great) will lead us to want to stay there on Sunday mornings.

Band is Keys, Electric, Acoustic, Drums, Violin, 3-5 vocals. Hoping to add a bass soon. So pretty simple. The reason for the snake is ease of setup. Put that in a rack in middle of band, plug directly in and use SQ5 at FOH connected to computer, some wireless.

Now, to my issue.

I looked at a ton of stuff and decided on a Allen and Heath SQ5 and AR2412 and rack mount headphone amp.

As I talked to our main sound guy/head Elder about options, one of the reasons we went with the SQ5/ar2412 was it was very portable, easy to setup and wouldn't really outgrow it and if we decided not to do portable services we could swap it for our GL2400 and outboard and free up a few seats in our current building.

My problem is the cost. By the time I get the mixer,snake, rack mounts and cases etc I'm in the 4500-5k mark. The A&H personal mixers are pricey so adding those down the road seems extra.

I start looking at the QU series and wonder if the expand ability and features of the SQ are worth it. Especially with some used options out there. Or the Behringer X32 compact which I think can expand more than we would need. I definitely trust A&H more and loved the GLD80 I had at my old church.


We are also adding a Spanish ministry in our building. Not sure that will make a difference, but processing.

that is just going through my head.

Hopefully there is enough info and someone can chime in with thoughts

[Sam Potter]

So what is keeping you from using a board like the X32? Just the trust of A&H? At this level, the boards are all pretty reliable (except Soundcraft, forget that SI series.) The reason a lot of people go for the Behringer unit is for affordability and community support, which are terrific reasons to go in that direction. You can get an X32 with the stage snake and all the goodies for half of the bid of the A&H. It really comes down to workflow and how locked-down you want your boards to be. I used to hate Behringer but the more I got to see what that X32 can do, the more I became open to it.

What factors are most important for you and your team in this decision?


----
Samantha Potter
Audio & Production Engineering

[Mac Kerr]

So what is keeping you from using a board like the X32?

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Mac
admin

[Fred Dorado]

priorities

Portability
Easy & fast Setup
Ease of use for volunteers
expand ability

I want to say sound quality, but I'm guessing for the mixer we wouldn't notice that much difference

I really liked on the GLD we had that we could pretty much patch anything anywhere, so setting it up for volunteers and service/worship team transitions was easy.

So what is keeping you from using a board like the X32? Just the trust of A&H? At this level, the boards are all pretty reliable (except Soundcraft, forget that SI series.) The reason a lot of people go for the Behringer unit is for affordability and community support, which are terrific reasons to go in that direction. You can get an X32 with the stage snake and all the goodies for half of the bid of the A&H. It really comes down to workflow and how locked-down you want your boards to be. I used to hate Behringer but the more I got to see what that X32 can do, the more I became open to it.

What factors are most important for you and your team in this decision?


----
Samantha Potter
Audio & Production Engineering

[Rob Spence]

So, what is the budget for desk & stage box now that you have heard lots of comments.

You mention you liked using a GLD80. I have both GLDs & an SQ5. The SQ has pretty much all the same characteristics and lots of local I/O too.



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[lindsay Dean]

For the price of the Allen Heath bid you could just about get anX32, and a stagebox and and x32rack ( Portable) and the ( X32 rack can be used as a stage box also. sounds like a easy decision to me

[Fred Dorado]

Yep, this is what I had been thinking would be a good idea. When 2 mixers can be connected.

For the price of the Allen Heath bid you could just about get anX32, and a stagebox and and x32rack ( Portable) and the ( X32 rack can be used as a stage box also. sounds like a easy decision to me

haven't had that many comments.

I have 4k sitting in the bank for sound equipment. plus can go a little extra if needed, but could always use other sound stuff too.

So, what is the budget for desk & stage box now that you have heard lots of comments.

You mention you liked using a GLD80. I have both GLDs & an SQ5. The SQ has pretty much all the same characteristics and lots of local I/O too.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[lindsay Dean]

Don't forget you should also allow budget for UPS for all three and maybe a few decent Android or iPad tablets in case somebody breaks or walks off with one .
 the X32 can be controlled through Android and iPhones also

[Matthias McCready]

I use an X32 several times a week and own a GLD-80.

Can you get a good mix on an X32? Absolutely! Does it have a lot of functionality? Yes! Is it cheap, obviously. For the price, it is a great board.

However, I would steer you towards the A&H stuff (SQ 5, used GLD80). While you probably will not notice a sound difference between the two here are some things I have noticed:

As far as pricing is concerned through a good dealer I was actually able to get my A&H stuff cheaper than Behringer... (for what prices were at the time, and considering stage boxes).

I find the patching on A&H to be much more convenient. the X32 has a bad habit of doing things by blocks of 8 or pairs of 2. Can this be worked around creatively? Usually yes, it still is a headache though. Blocks of 8 are how the stage racks work. With my GLD-80 I have ran 3 stage boxes at the same time (plys the very limited surface I/O), and I can pull inputs from anywhere.  Routing to busses (pre/post fader)  linking/ganging channels (or matrices and busses), and a large amount of other facets are in pairs on the X32.

Suffice to say that you cannot put things wherever you want either (layer layout) with the X32, and if you do not have a computer handy with software and need to change a scene on X32 it certainly is not drag and drop. Not a huge issue, but can make for a frustrating hour or two if you end up redoing your files at any point.

Gld80 can be locked down with a password while the X32 cannot.

I have NEVER heard a P16 sound good. Can you get a decent mix on them? Yes, however, they just do not sound great. I have taken the same Nord Piano 3 with the exact same Radial ProD2, running no channel EQ/Comp stereo to the ears and there is a massive difference in fidelity between P16's and Avioms (the old A16IIs!). It is night and day.

The p16's are the main reason I would steer clear of the Behringer infrastructure. To get to another type of ear system (going over Dante or something) you will end up spending more than the X32 cost new in conversions (card/distribution rack).

I am not sure about the SQ5, but with the GLD80 you can use Aviom A16II's which are very cheap used, although personally, I would say the A&H units have a lot more to offer, if at all possible avoid IEM mixers without Ethercon connectors.

Also fair warning the P16's tend to drop like flies. I have worked with three churches in the past few years that have P16's, at any given time almost half of them were broken! None of these churches use them heavily either. One place where I currently work has 5 working out of 10. I am not a repair guy, and I am getting a different system rather than bring them to repair center incessantly.

Even though the X32 is great for the price, I have much more confidence in the stage boxes and choices available for monitoring on the A&H side. Even if you are not buying monitors right now at some point you probably will be.

 All said and done eventually you will probably be spending $5-8 with a console, stage racks, and an IEM system. Whatever system you choose make sure you are not $4k in the wrong direction when you are wanting to purchase the IEM system. buy once, cry once.

Also one more minor note on the sound is I really dislike the sound of the stock channel compressors on the X32 (the fx rack plugins sound much better), however with A&H you get some nice sounding options on every channel, no need to go using up your fx rack.

[Fred Dorado]

Thank you. This is perfect. These are the reasons I wanted to go with the SQ5 over the X32 or even the QU

I use an X32 several times a week and own a GLD-80.

Can you get a good mix on an X32? Absolutely! Does it have a lot of functionality? Yes! Is it cheap, obviously. For the price, it is a great board.

However, I would steer you towards the A&H stuff (SQ 5, used GLD80). While you probably will not notice a sound difference between the two here are some things I have noticed:

As far as pricing is concerned through a good dealer I was actually able to get my A&H stuff cheaper than Behringer... (for what prices were at the time, and considering stage boxes).

I find the patching on A&H to be much more convenient. the X32 has a bad habit of doing things by blocks of 8 or pairs of 2. Can this be worked around creatively? Usually yes, it still is a headache though. Blocks of 8 are how the stage racks work. With my GLD-80 I have ran 3 stage boxes at the same time (plys the very limited surface I/O), and I can pull inputs from anywhere.  Routing to busses (pre/post fader)  linking/ganging channels (or matrices and busses), and a large amount of other facets are in pairs on the X32.

Suffice to say that you cannot put things wherever you want either (layer layout) with the X32, and if you do not have a computer handy with software and need to change a scene on X32 it certainly is not drag and drop. Not a huge issue, but can make for a frustrating hour or two if you end up redoing your files at any point.

Gld80 can be locked down with a password while the X32 cannot.

I have NEVER heard a P16 sound good. Can you get a decent mix on them? Yes, however, they just do not sound great. I have taken the same Nord Piano 3 with the exact same Radial ProD2, running no channel EQ/Comp stereo to the ears and there is a massive difference in fidelity between P16's and Avioms (the old A16IIs!). It is night and day.

The p16's are the main reason I would steer clear of the Behringer infrastructure. To get to another type of ear system (going over Dante or something) you will end up spending more than the X32 cost new in conversions (card/distribution rack).

I am not sure about the SQ5, but with the GLD80 you can use Aviom A16II's which are very cheap used, although personally, I would say the A&H units have a lot more to offer, if at all possible avoid IEM mixers without Ethercon connectors.

Also fair warning the P16's tend to drop like flies. I have worked with three churches in the past few years that have P16's, at any given time almost half of them were broken! None of these churches use them heavily either. One place where I currently work has 5 working out of 10. I am not a repair guy, and I am getting a different system rather than bring them to repair center incessantly.

Even though the X32 is great for the price, I have much more confidence in the stage boxes and choices available for monitoring on the A&H side. Even if you are not buying monitors right now at some point you probably will be.

 All said and done eventually you will probably be spending $5-8 with a console, stage racks, and an IEM system. Whatever system you choose make sure you are not $4k in the wrong direction when you are wanting to purchase the IEM system. buy once, cry once.

Also one more minor note on the sound is I really dislike the sound of the stock channel compressors on the X32 (the fx rack plugins sound much better), however with A&H you get some nice sounding options on every channel, no need to go using up your fx rack.

[ProSoundWeb Community]