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There are SO many variables....

Purchasing a PA this size for a tour is an interesting choice, but....

I would spec a d&b rig of appropriate size and a Yamaha desk, preferably a PM5. Reason one is that these tools just work, and I hate tools that quit working. Also, d&b is everywhere in Europe and Rivage is quite common and/or you can console convert to CL5 for one or two dates and get by just fine.

I wouldn't run any outboard anything if you are renting on European dates. No Waves, no pesky analog gear. KISS principle.

Digico are obviously very prevalent worldwide as well, so if you prefer those, have at it.

And finally, a DLive rig can travel. Get the big 3500 surface for US shows and the baby 1500 surface for fly dates. That way it's always the same desk no matter where you go.

That being said, I'd still go Yamaha. But that's me....

{...} The other odd behavior is that, unlike previous installations of Smaart, this instance takes >1 min of looking at the splash screen before it’s up and running. {...}

IIRC, during its splash screen Smaart tries to talk to any audio device that the system has drivers for (just to check if they're working), so the more audio drivers you have installed on your computer the longer Smaart will take to start (or something like that).

-Russ

I used to have huge stacks of various USB cables, most that came with devices and got tossed in the pile. A couple years ago, after seemingly never-ending issues with both production and non-production equipment like printers, I threw them all away and bought a stock of new ones from C2G. I haven't had problems with any of the new ones yet, but I figure I will have to do it all again at the 5-year mark. It involved spending a bit of money, but it was worth it not to be banging my head against the wall every time I connected a USB device.

I’ve been doing this long enough that I should have known better. But here we are. Over the several years that I’ve owned a Sound Devices USBPre 2 I’ve chronically fought a weird crackling noise on playback. It’s independent of signal level, source application, sampling rate, type of source file (mp3, wav, Smaart’s pink noise gen, etc.), and every other variable I could think of. It could often be made to go away by replugging the USB connection (clue). I never heard it going the other way using the USBPre as a source (recording mode). It got especially bad the last few days while I was doing a full system reacquaintance (how do you work this thing?) and checkout.

Well, the title says it. I swapped USB cables and problem gone. I rounded up all my USB cables and they all appear to work fine except this one. Silly me to assume that digital connections either work perfectly or not at all.

--Frank

Sounds like a great opportunity. 

We have 4 Avantis and I love mixing on them.  But I wouldn't take one on a tour of that scale.  They have no redundancy in either power supplies or networked audio.  It's a $10k console for a reason.  If you like the AH stuff, go with Dlive S.  If you like Digico, why not get one?  The console cost is a rounding error on a tour playing 10k plus venues. 

For PA, you're not buying L-Acoustics L2 for fall 2024.  You might get K2 but it's unlikely. 

I'm curious why this would be a purchase rather than a rental from one of the usual suspects.  There's a reason Clair and the rest of them exist.  I have clients who consider purchasing parts of their system, but when asked where they're storing it, who's maintaining it, etc. they quickly come to realize why they're better off renting. 

You are doing your artist a disservice to reject JBL VTX or A series.

I currently am Audio Janitor for an l'Acoustic K3/KS28 rig.  Perhaps it's because I don't speak AudioFrench, but I find myself disliking most of the system tuning tools, but perhaps that's because the only official training is in-person and the system owner hasn't been keen on sending me out for that training.  It's not a bad rig but not what I would have specified even if I liked the l'Acoustic ecosystem.

My experience with S6L has been mostly that the WAVES part of the package crashed.  Never had an issue with the console itself.  YMMV, etc.  Take a look at the PM7 Rivage, I think you'll like the way it sounds and so far maintain Yamaha's "it just works" tradition.

+1. Are we actually talking about the Yamaha 4115H cabinets of my youth?!

There wasn't too much stacking going on with those! The heaviest telex-covered particle-board boxes I've ever dealt with that were only rated at "100W"
-Mine actually were run with the matching console. -mixing, EQ and effects all in one handy box!

If so they should probably be in a museum rather than out on shows.

+1. Are we actually talking about the Yamaha 4115H cabinets of my youth?!

+1. Are we actually talking about the Yamaha 4115H cabinets of my youth?!

Nice throwback. Haha. Used to call them YammA-7's...
Chris.

Stacking them with the top cabinet upside down for a horn to horn stack would help assuming they just needed more straight ahead output.

+1. Are we actually talking about the Yamaha 4115H cabinets of my youth?!