Best inexpensive wireless mixer

Re: Best inexpensive wireless mixer

Brian jojade said:
You've never used one of these then: Behringer: EURORACK MX1604A

O.K, maybe the problem isn't in the pre-amp, and it's somewhere else in the mixer, but that board just sounds like hell. Very noticeable difference by just swapping it with anything else.

There are differences in sounds of mixers, especially at the low end. In the digital realm, the differences are far less, but they still do exist. The ideal system would be completely transparent, but nothing actually is 100%.
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I wrote an article about performance limits in console design back in 1980, before some reading this thread were born. Back then it was somewhat harder than today, with easily demonstrable differences between cheap mixers and premium gear. Since then the performance of low cost ICs has improved dramatically, somewhat reducing the spread between premium and value product. That said if you buy your fruit from the bottom of the barrel there may be some bruises. I am not making a critical comment about Behringer mixers. I never even bothered to bring one into my lab to check out back when I was in those trenches, and read what you want into that.

I suspect the largest "perceived" difference between modern mixers is things like the tuning (Q/bandwidth and centers) of the EQ. Things like the speed of the sundry control laws, which can affect where you end up as a user dialing in your "mix". The ergonomics of how mixers respond to the user, is not an objective quantifiable science, while there are surely real differences, that do not show up on the test bench measurements.

I am not claiming that all mixers are created equal. I am saying that looking at the mic preamps to explain the difference will not be productive. Note: There are some premium(?) brands that intentionally encourage overload into a soft limiter at the preamp, that will surely sound different. I have never liked the sound of distortion in my audio paths, but I am not the customer for these products and they apparently enjoy some following.

JR
 
Re: Best inexpensive wireless mixer

In most cases, I agree that mixers are going to be close. This is the one that I had particular experience with that made me realize that all equipment is not the same. The mic inputs were particularly horrid sounding, so yes, the pre's were a major factor in the suck. Aside from some REALLY old gear, I haven't run into any other board though where I would say that the pre's were different enough to matter.
 
Re: Best inexpensive wireless mixer

Bennett Prescott said:
I have never, once, in my entire life been able to attribute bad sound to a preamp. Loudspeakers, bands, tracks, glue joints, A/Ds, D/As, compressors, limiters, DSPs, power, even amplifiers, sure. Never a preamp operating in its linear range.
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And perhaps its not just the preamp in cheaper consoles that cause "bad sound"...

Systems are typically up to spec with our festival stuff.. d&b Q, J.. sometimes DVdosc.. our trap point and shoot boxes are kf695z's on ux processors properly powered. All very hi-fi systems and when we are not using a high end FOH you can certainly tell.. I prefer my lake processor but I have a 2x6 so it cannot be used for a mixer. We use a allen-heath mixwiz when we have to.. it sounds great. The cheaper digital boards not so much.

Gonna test out a soundcraft on one of our upcoming shows and see how it does.. being able to stay all digital may be a plus for us.
 
Re: Best inexpensive wireless mixer

"Pre-Amps are the single most important thing. Please just take my word on it"

Why should we take your word on it? You are not the only one here who has used a mixer.
 
Re: Best inexpensive wireless mixer

Chuck Simon said:
"Pre-Amps are the single most important thing. Please just take my word on it"

Why should we take your word on it? You are not the only one here who has used a mixer.
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I would argue that you probably have not used a mixer in the way that I do. That is to say that we are not mixing instruments so that each channel only has a little bit of signal coming thru it (i.e. a single instrument). When pushing high level dj playback thru a channel strip it seems to matter a lot more. I have pushed audio thru hundreds of consoles.. from pm5s, sd9s, venues, to mc/ls series stuff. Some of you know the big guy I produced for a while that needed avalon's on his outputs. I'm not an electrical engineer and I cannot tell you why many of the boards we used did not sound good.. but I know they did not sound good and it wasn't the system or the input program. These standards follow our type of shows to the highest level (EDC among one of them). It is on this basis that I hope for a high quality 'input' on a console that isn't say a SD11. (if we had the budget for such things on a smaller scale that would probably be my first choice).
 
Re: Best inexpensive wireless mixer

Jeff Kenney said:
I would argue that you probably have not used a mixer in the way that I do. That is to say that we are not mixing instruments so that each channel only has a little bit of signal coming thru it (i.e. a single instrument). When pushing high level dj playback thru a channel strip it seems to matter a lot more.
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You may not grasp what is going on inside a preamp at the electronic level. The "work" for a preamp is boosting up tiny signal voltages without corrupting the quality of each individual signal with noise and/or distortion.

High level DJ playback doesn't even need to go through a preamp stage since it is already at line level. Is it possible you are feeding too hot of a signal into a preamp gain stage and hearing the path clip/overload? While some premium consoles will have input pads, they generally also have separate line level inputs for line level signals. Some mic preamps may not allow you to trim back their gain enough to handle strong line level signals at a mic input.
I have pushed audio thru hundreds of consoles.. from pm5s, sd9s, venues, to mc/ls series stuff. Some of you know the big guy I produced for a while that needed avalon's on his outputs. I'm not an electrical engineer and I cannot tell you why many of the boards we used did not sound good.. but I know they did not sound good and it wasn't the system or the input program. These standards follow our type of shows to the highest level (EDC among one of them). It is on this basis that I hope for a high quality 'input' on a console that isn't say a SD11. (if we had the budget for such things on a smaller scale that would probably be my first choice).
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It seems a little odd to argue about preamp quality when dealing with line level signals that do not need to be pre-amplified.

JR
 
Re: Best inexpensive wireless mixer

John you don't always have line inputs. (digirack with no line card). I also recall pm5's not having line inputs? Also what happens on some of these digital boards that have a universal input (venue mix rack). Does the signal still travel thru a pre amp before hitting the a/d or is it done digitally?

How do the entry level boards handle this? Is there a pad/gain reduction or does it actually bypass the pre-amp all together? Is there a separate line input?
 
Re: Best inexpensive wireless mixer

Jeff Kenney said:
John you don't always have line inputs. (digirack with no line card). I also recall pm5's not having line inputs? Also what happens on some of these digital boards that have a universal input (venue mix rack). Does the signal still travel thru a pre amp before hitting the a/d or is it done digitally?

How do the entry level boards handle this? Is there a pad/gain reduction or does it actually bypass the pre-amp all together? Is there a separate line input?
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The Mackie DL1608 (which I think I originally suggested) does have Line ins. 4 of them actually.....
 
Re: Best inexpensive wireless mixer

Jeff Kenney said:
John you don't always have line inputs. (digirack with no line card). I also recall pm5's not having line inputs? Also what happens on some of these digital boards that have a universal input (venue mix rack). Does the signal still travel thru a pre amp before hitting the a/d or is it done digitally?

How do the entry level boards handle this? Is there a pad/gain reduction or does it actually bypass the pre-amp all together? Is there a separate line input?
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Yes, to save the cost of additional connectors and active electronics they often just pad down the line input and run it through the mic preamp. Some boards with line input connectors on the channels, still just pad it down and feed the mic preamp. While it only takes two or three opamps to make a decent balanced line input, this cost times the number of input channels adds up.

Most decent consoles will have a few dedicated true line input channels (like efx returns) that do not send the line level signal through an extra unneeded gain stage.

I don't want to make this appear worse than it is. As long as you pad the signal down and don't clip the mic preamp gain stage it shouldn't trash the sound quality in any very obvious ways for most audiences, but there are subtle differences. Mic preamps are optimized to deliver low noise and low distortion at full gain, running at minimum gain is not the major focus of that design effort.

Running a line level though an extra unneeded gain stage is not as bad as an extra A/D and D/A bounce, but not optimal. If you experience sound quality differences you may want to search for true line inputs or maybe carry some inline pads with you. YMMV

JR
 
Re: Best inexpensive wireless mixer

John Roberts said:
Yes, to save the cost of additional connectors and active electronics they often just pad down the line input and run it through the mic preamp. Some boards with line input connectors on the channels, still just pad it down and feed the mic preamp. While it only takes two or three opamps to make a decent balanced line input, this cost times the number of input channels adds up.

Most decent consoles will have a few dedicated true line input channels (like efx returns) that do not send the line level signal through an extra unneeded gain stage.

I don't want to make this appear worse than it is. As long as you pad the signal down and don't clip the mic preamp gain stage it shouldn't trash the sound quality in any very obvious ways for most audiences, but there are subtle differences. Mic preamps are optimized to deliver low noise and low distortion at full gain, running at minimum gain is not the major focus of that design effort.

Running a line level though an extra unneeded gain stage is not as bad as an extra A/D and D/A bounce, but not optimal. If you experience sound quality differences you may want to search for true line inputs or maybe carry some inline pads with you. YMMV

JR
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The reason for the OP was a consideration of lower level "remote fader / eq" applications for simple DJ mixes / tracks for lower level shows. Applying the experience from bigger consoles to the smaller ones I would assume there are drastic differences in quality. When we can use some as simple as a dolby lake for our eq and mix control on the front end the system is great. Going to explore the Soundcraft, the Mackie, and perhaps even the X32 to see how we feel about sound quality. If there are any other suggestions I would love to check them out - especially with Infocomm right around the corner.
 
Re: Best inexpensive wireless mixer

Jeff Kenney said:
The reason for the OP was a consideration of lower level "remote fader / eq" applications for simple DJ mixes / tracks for lower level shows. Applying the experience from bigger consoles to the smaller ones I would assume there are drastic differences in quality.
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Why exactly do you expect smaller consoles to be different (lower) quality? I would expect smaller consoles to be smaller. I would expect cheaper consoles to have less features. Actual quality is poorly understood and rarely discussed thoughtfully.
When we can use some as simple as a dolby lake for our eq and mix control on the front end the system is great. Going to explore the Soundcraft, the Mackie, and perhaps even the X32 to see how we feel about sound quality. If there are any other suggestions I would love to check them out - especially with Infocomm right around the corner.
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If just looking for gain control some amplifiers have external gain control capability. I expect the audio path of most products to be adequate for DJ use if applied correctly and operated in the linear region.

JR
 
Re: Best inexpensive wireless mixer

Chuck Simon said:
I'm curious - are you playing MP3's through your system?
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Here is the thing I don't like about this forum. Sometimes I don't want to post because I feel like I have to defend the OP over and over with people that think they are smarter than the question. The answer is yes - sometimes MP3's get played. Yes I am aware that MP3 Bitrate is substandard to the audio quality / and signal chain quality. There are MANY factors that determine what we hear in the audience and that is just 1/100 of them. But then again there is also studio quality stuff played directly from software programs such as abelton with studio quality output hardware devices. There is also wave and other file formats.. USB sticks.. CDs... and other playback devices.
 
Re: Best inexpensive wireless mixer

Jeff Kenney said:
Here is the thing I don't like about this forum. Sometimes I don't want to post because I feel like I have to defend the OP over and over with people that think they are smarter than the question.
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This forum is far from unique in that respect. I have a longer list of web behavior complaints, but know better than to think I can change the nature of the beast by pointing at it.
The answer is yes - sometimes MP3's get played. Yes I am aware that MP3 Bitrate is substandard to the audio quality / and signal chain quality. There are MANY factors that determine what we hear in the audience and that is just 1/100 of them. But then again there is also studio quality stuff played directly from software programs such as abelton with studio quality output hardware devices. There is also wave and other file formats.. USB sticks.. CDs... and other playback devices.
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Indeed... for live SR, loudspeakers and room acoustics are far weaker links in the chain. It is human nature to try to optimize some small aspect of the signal chain that they think they understand, when the entire path is complex, and/or not under their control.

Better is always better, but not always important.

JR
 
Re: Best inexpensive wireless mixer

Jeff Kenney said:
Here is the thing I don't like about this forum. Sometimes I don't want to post because I feel like I have to defend the OP over and over with people that think they are smarter than the question. The answer is yes - sometimes MP3's get played. Yes I am aware that MP3 Bitrate is substandard to the audio quality / and signal chain quality. There are MANY factors that determine what we hear in the audience and that is just 1/100 of them. But then again there is also studio quality stuff played directly from software programs such as abelton with studio quality output hardware devices. There is also wave and other file formats.. USB sticks.. CDs... and other playback devices.
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Wow! All I did was ask if you played MP3's through your system! I made no comments or judgments. You don't need to dis the forum based on my question!
 
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Re: Best inexpensive wireless mixer

John Roberts said:
This forum is far from unique in that respect. I have a longer list of web behavior complaints, but know better than to think I can change the nature of the beast by pointing at it.


Indeed... for live SR, loudspeakers and room acoustics are far weaker links in the chain. It is human nature to try to optimize some small aspect of the signal chain that they think they understand, when the entire path is complex, and/or not under their control.

Better is always better, but not always important.

JR
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"Better is always better, but not always important"

Great quote. I am stealing it ;)
 
Re: Best inexpensive wireless mixer

Bennett Prescott said:
I have never, once, in my entire life been able to attribute bad sound to a preamp. Loudspeakers, bands, tracks, glue joints, A/Ds, D/As, compressors, limiters, DSPs, power, even amplifiers, sure. Never a preamp operating in its linear range.
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In a DJ environment I would have to agree, I have never thought a better pre would make a difference. Better crossover or eq, yes... In a live sound environment, I have heard some brittle/wooden pres that I could say were the fault of the pre. In recording, great mics do not sound great without a preamp equal to the task so PRE is VERY improtant.
 
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