Samson SM10 Line Mixer

This is a high quality mixer. After over 4 years of use it's worked perfectly without a single issue. It has very low noise levels. The high quality knobs are smooth, not at all loose, they don't ever stick or slip, they have the perfect feel to them as you fade in and out. The faders for channels 1-8 volume and balance/pan controls have a click spot that's evident in the center position (12 O'clock). Even with this handy click position, you can still very smoothly fade the channels in and out. One thing pretty unique about this mixer is that there are actually a total of 4 separate true stereo output mixes available: main mix, effects send, monitor send, and mix B (the "muted" mix). The 1/4" stereo headphone output on the front can be set to monitor any of these 4 output mixes. Mix B is exclusively available on the headphone output, while the other three mixes have their own separate dedicated stereo ouputs. This design is very flexible, allowing combinations not possible on a lot of other mixers. The ability to mix to effects send and monitor send independently IN STEREO completely separate from the main mix and mix B is a fantastic feature. When the headphone output is set to mix B, then all 4 mixes (main mix, effects send, monitor send, and mix B) have their own separate stereo outputs, each with their own volume fader knobs. Note that mix B is a special "muted" channel mix. Only muted input channels 1-8 will go to mix B. The mute buttons are essentially output routing toggle switches, not simply mute buttons. This is a great design. When channels 1-8 are muted, they are routed so that they are only available to the monitor send mix and mix B (the "muted" mix). When channels 1-8 are not muted, they are only available to the monitor send mix, effects send mix, and the main mix. Regardless of the mute setting, channels 1-8 are always available to the monitor send mix. Pressing the mute buttons produces no audible click that I can hear, even at full volume. The stereo effects send output is a stereo 1/4" jack. If channels 1-8 are not muted they can be individually mixed to the effects send output using their EFX fader knobs. The effects send mix is stereo, not mono. A lot of other mixers actually have mono effects send outputs. On this mixer, the effects send mix is affected by each channel's volume and balance/pan fader positions. In other words, if you panned an input to the right, and set it at 50% volume, that's the mix that the effects send gets when you set the EFX fader knob at 100% volume. The stereo monitor send output on the back is a true stereo 1/4" jack. Unlike the mono monitor send output in the front, the back monitor send output is actually stereo. And unlike the effects send, the monitor send mix bypasses each input channel's mute, volume and balance/pan settings. In other words, if you mute input channel 1 and set the volume for input channel 1 at 0% and balance/pan channel 1 to the right, and set the channel 1 MON fader at 100%, you will get a monitor mix of channel 1 at 100% volume that's NOT panned to the right or muted. This has caused some people to be a bit confused, and to wrongfully determine that the monitor mix is mono and not stereo, because the balance knob has no effect on the monitor mix. The back monitor output is indeed stereo. I verified this. However, the front monitor output jack is mono. A great use for the monitor send mix is to allow you to have effects processed audio heard on the main mix that's processed from audio input from the mixer that can't be heard on the main mix. For example, for a great vocoder only effect on the main mix, connect a mic to channel 1, then turn it's volume to 0% so the original mic audio can't be heard in the main mix output. Then set the mic's MON on channel 1 to 100% so it goes to the monitor send's output. Then, using a vocoder on input channel 2 with it's volume set at 100%, which is getting mic input from channel 1 via the monitor send's output, you will hear the vocoder processed voice output on channel 2 that's an effect processed from channel 1 without hearing the original mic output from channel 1. It sounds like you plugged the mic directly into the vocoder instead of the mixer, but you didn't! This type of audio routing is really handy! The effects send doesn't work this way on the main mix. If you did this using the effects send output instead, you will hear the processed mic audio as well as the original mic audio, because the effects send output cannot process anything that's not heard on the main mix even if an input channel's EFX knob is at 100%. These two different audio routing options are very useful for different purposes. Pros: * Built to last. Had it for over 4 years now and it still works like it's new. * 4 individual stereo output mixes (even effects and monitor sends are stereo). * Inputs 1-10 are all stereo! * Inputs 1-8 can be individually sent to any of 4 different mixes. * Inputs 1-8 have individual volume, balance, effects send, and monitor send faders. * Inputs 1-8 can be muted (sent from main mix to mix B). * Inputs 1-2 have both XLR and 1/4" inputs. * For shelf use it includes soft feet, and removable rack ears. * Internal power supply, with removable computer style power cord. * Stereo headphone jack that can monitor all 4 different output mixes individually. Cons: * Inputs 9-10 have only volume faders. * Inputs 9-10 can only go to the main mix. * The power switch is in the back. This is a minor issue. Since I would never use the mixer without anything else also on that's connected to it, I have no need for it to have a power switch. I use a power strip for that purpose. If you want a high quality mixer with a ton of features in this price range, then GET THIS MIXER! I looked at all the others in this price range. As of the writing of this review, there's currently no other mixer available in this price range that has all the features of this mixer.

I have been working with this mixer for a few days now, and I am very pleased with it. This is an excellent mixer, mainly because it has many more features than other products from the same price range. Examples: 1) mute button on each channel 2) monitor sends (pre fader) on each channel 3) FX sends (post fader) on each channel 4) -10 or +4 gain selector button on each channel (on the back) 5) two kinds of main outs (XLR and quarter inch) 6) only takes up one rack space 7) even though it's small, the buttons are still well organized on the front and easy to use 8) the first two channels have both XLR inputs and 1/4 inch inputs 9) XLR inputs are phantom powered. Another similar mixer with almost the same exact price was lacking features 1, 2, 4, 5, and 9. Why pay the same money for a mixer with less features? Great mixer, great price. Nice job, Samson, you really put together a nice mixer here. 2018 UPDATE The mute buttons all stopped working - sometimes they would stick, other times they would depress but not mute that channel. It was a great mixer while it lasted.

So seems amazing that these run 20 inputs in 1U for $cheap (mine was $175 from Amazon Warehouse). What corners were cut to pull that off? Well the biggest flaw that stands out is the faders on the channels distort the signal below unity. They must not be typical analog pots, or something. At unity, which is supposed to be at the noon detente but is just over it on some of my channels, the sound cleans up well. The distortion isn’t really that noticeable and you may even like it. But a lot of little harmonics on the spectrogram. The rest of the faders, including sends and masters, do not distort. But every channel fader on mine shows this. The noise floor on the unit with everything muted is low, a little over 90dB dynamic range, but lots of harmonic spikes making a faint fizz. Not a lovely controlled white noise in my room at least. But $cheap so... Now for the rookie mistakes by whoever designed this. The EFX and MON sends on the back aren’t balanced, they aren’t mono, they aren’t even stereo...so what are they??? They are stereo, but playing two mono channels at once, in phase. The EFX and MON busses are mono lines, without pan compensation, and worse, with 5dB less headroom than the main stereo bus. The sends sum to mono but then are split into unbalanced stereo on a single 1/4” trs Jack, and it you plug into a balanced input, it will phase cancel the two mono lines killing the input level. So you will need a TRS splitter cable (an “insert cable”) for these jacks, but you won’t get true stereo out of them anyway. Bizarre. Wrong. Weird. Annoying. Lost a star for this alone. And even odder, the MON send on the front is true mono, only sending signal out the tip. You can use a balanced connection with this jack safely. It even has its own level knob. The MON sends are not only pre-fader they’re also pre-mute, and they never get totally off, so you might want your MON output dialed down a bit as long as you won’t need to clip the bus internally. Except, and a big except, is the headphone output on the front makes the EFX and MON busses stereo! And that headphone output gets LOUD as all getout. So if you want a true stereo EFX send, you can use the headphone output switched to EFX. Curiouser and curiouser. There are clip lights on each channel, but they are the same red as the mute light they share, so can be hard to notice. And the master meter does not have a clip light, so you will have to listen. Hey at least there’s some metering! But the meter reads what the headphone selector is set to, not necessarily the main. But if you can get through all of that, stay at unity gain and not need over 90dB of clean DR, yes this all works fine for the price and size. Until it fails, which apparently is soon reading the other reviews.

It has been a pretty good piece of hardware for a good price, up until it started introducing buzz noise. I've had it for 2 years, and initially I was pretty happy with it, but then one day mild buzzing noise started coming out of it even with all channels on mute, and never ceased. Since I use it in my home office, it has been pretty unbearable, and I had to replace it with other equipment. Might be fine for a concert setup, where buzz will get drowned out, but if you want it to perform well when silent, go for something else.

Habe mit diesem Gerät mein altes Behringer-Teil ersetzt. Ist vor meine Aktiv-Boxen geschaltet, darüber sind nun die Ausgänge von 4 PCs, 2 Mischpulten und 2 AD-Wandlern geschaltet und geregelt. Funktioniert perfekt, für mich kein hörbares Rauschen oder Brummen, bei Null-Stellung der Eingangs-Regler herrscht tatsächlich absolute Stille (anders als bei meinem alten Behringer). Also eigentlich perfekt. Aber: Bei Verkauf in Deutschland sollte auch ein Netztkabel für unsere Steckdosen mitgeliefert werden, ist leider nicht der Fall. Die Aufteilung der Regler und Kontroll-Led's ist nicht optimal und erschwert die Bedienung. Zwar sind die jeweils 4 Regler eines Stereo-Eingangs räumlich zusammenhängend angebracht, jedoch die Druckschalter/Led's zum Abschalten der jeweiligen Eingänge machen das Bedienfeld recht unübersichtlich. So sind also immer die Leuchtschalter von ZWEI Eingängen übereinander montiert. Man mag mich für "nickelig" halten, aber micht nervt diese Einteilung, hätte man besser lösen können. Wen diese beiden Einschränkungen > Kabel und Front < nicht stören, darf dem Line Mixer gerne den fünften Stern spendieren.

I am sure the mixer is great, but received it this morning and had no idea it was a US voltage machine - there is nothing in the description re: that and indeed on the back of the unit it lists 240V etc suitable for Australia power ... so effectively arrived unusable and had to return ...

Dit is "de" mixer voor keyboardspelers met meerdere toestellen. Een van de besten zoals gebleken in verschillende testen in verschillende landen. Helaas is hij moeilijk leverbaar en hier was hij nog te vinden aan een voordelige prijs.

J'ai plusieurs claviers et modules de son. C'est vraiment parfait pour moi. Une sortie independante pour l'enregistrement, une pour les moniteur, et une pour mon rack d'effet. Très complet en aussi peu d'espace.

Il mixer in questione non ha fruscii di fondo, ottimi connettori Attenzione che ha la spina di corrente americana anche se poi funziona a 220V tranquillamente Tempi di consegna perfetti Imballi perfetti