Allen & HeathZED-14-14-Channel Touring Quality Mixer with USB I/O (AH-ZED-14),Grey/Red

Allen & Heath win the day. Great board. I weighed up the whole Soundcraft vs. Allen & Heath debate when it came time to replace my almost 15yr old Mackie. Decided on this gem and Axe Music got the goods to me in a super fast manner. Thanks guys.

This board is the hub of my home vocal studio, where I work as a professional Voiceover Artist.The ZED-14 is an easy way to route my inputs between my DAWs and other outputs (headphones at the recording desk and in the booth, studio monitors, etc.). The board also has the input and output flexibility to allow me to run Skype mix-minus set ups, telephone VOIP patches, etc., so that clients can listen to and comment on my work in real time while I'm in the booth, but I can exclude their inputs from the Mains output, so their comments don't make it to my DAW master tracks.The USB interface is solid and doesn't seem to introduce any problematic latency (though I monitor directly from the mains output, not from the USB Return). I also don't notice any digital artifacting and, in fact, think that it does as well at analog-digital conversion as my much more expensive Lavry converter that's a dedicated box in my signal chain.The entire board has an extremely solid and professional feel to it. Granted, I'm a VO artist and engineer and don't tote it from gig to gig or hammer on it during multi-feed recording sessions, but I have a lot of confidence in the durability and longevity of the board.The mic preamps are good, but not great. For a board in this price range, they're solid and should be fine for most gigging musicians and basic home recording. They're very quiet with a very, very low noise floor and good responsiveness. The gain controls, 100Hz Hi-pass filter, and 3 band EQ all perform their jobs, and the sweepable mid-frequency EQ is a really nice feature.Unfortunately, for what I do, the preamps don't have the chops to deliver on powerful Voiceovers with top-shelf tube mics. I can't hold that against the ZED in the rating, though. It's not billed as a full signal chain solution; in order to get the sound I need, I have to run through a channel strip with a compressor, more powerful pre, de-esser/limiter, and a more surgical EQ.Overall, this board is a critical part of my studio and sound chain. It's flexibility allows me to offer client services that other boards don't, and until I started pairing it with boutique tube mics it met all of my daily needs.

5 Stars because I love it, it is loaded with features, it sounds amazing and at the price - it is. However, that doesn't mean it's perfect. Quality at cost is excellent. Sound quality was above what I expected, and to be fair - I'm a harsh critic and expected to be disappointed. I have a lunchbox setup with some pro quality pres, some of the best, so I have a reference. However, I needed many more simultaneous channels for recording bands all at once. I decided to replace an older smaller board. This unit holds its own in sound quality and most likely won't disappoint. I was very impressed with my first recordings through it. The EQs worked well, it just worked and sounded nice. I love the inserts for out/in routing... great for going to an audio interface and mixing to a monitoring solution. So with all that, what's not great? Well, +48V is all 16 channels on or off. That is lame. No ribbons need apply here. And the USB interface is 2 channels, which is lame for a board with this many channels. But it's doubly so when you realize MacOS will let you link audio interface units but then you realize that the interface is just 44.1k and 16bit... the lowest of the low of modern digital sampling. It makes the USB part mostly useless since you want higher quality masters to begin with and won't use this despite having it. And I figure many bought it for that selling point because it wasn't clear what you were getting. Lastly, the faders have nice travel, but are far too light in feel... not cheap per say, but they slide too easily for proper mixing IMO. I like some tactile feedback... and these don't have it. Again, for the cost, highly recommended... as long as you understand the critiques are valid and are real limitations compared to more expensive gear.

A&H, in making the ZED 14, took a gamble on people who don't need (and could not afford) full sized studio mixers.. Could they enter the field of producing smaller mixers at prices affordable to these more modestly endowed clients and not risk offending (or worse, losing) their big board professional clientele?First, you need to know this unit was not made in Britain but China. This is probably no surprise.But it gets better from there. Allen & Heath have managed to carve a place in the modest mixer category that not only doesn't embarrass those of us devoted to their multi-channel studio boards, but provides a worthy companion. And for the price, that is a major accomplishment.You'll read that the board is solid. It is. What you need to do though is "hear" what it does that other brands of mixers just below this price range fail miserably at doing. This board is smooth, transparent and workable. Once you get over the quirkiness of lit "mute" buttons rather than lit "on" buttons, nothing about this board raises ears or eyebrows. Your work is what it does, and that is done powerfully, dynamically and smoothly.You pay a little more (but not much) and you get what engineers demand: reliable performance. For this market, this box is as close to the upper lines of pro mixers (including A&H's top lines) as you can get! Oh yes, there are units selling well into the thousands (A&H sells those, too) but the ZED 14 will not disappoint you and perhaps best of all, for the company, it is not the kind of embarassing mix-box you could buy and quickly regret. It's not a Rolls , nor a Bentley, but let's say. a worthy Range Rover! Spend a little more, like they say, because later you will never think about the price.

Works as expected. Easy to setup and use.Would recommend for people who are serious about sound. Very sturdy built