Allen & Heath ZED-10 Analogue Mixer for Live Sound and Recording

The Allen & Heath ZED-10 Analogue Mixer for Live Sound and Recording is an amazing little desk for small band mixing. It is ultra portable for carrying to the gig, and can be used for recording live or in the studio. It comes with configurable USB audio in/out making it easy to capture stereo recordings. Guitars can be plugged in directly to the mixer using the specially designed high-impedance inputs, while the mixer has two stereo inputs for MP3/CD players or keyboards. Equipped with professional XLR stereo outputs and a flexible monitoring section with headphone and speaker feed outputs.

Getting audio to and from a computer easily is now a common requirement for live sound and music production. The way this has been implemented on ZED is super-flexible and super-easy! No longer do you need to fiddle around the back of your PC to get to the soundcard inputs, only to find that the levels are all wrong and noisy. Just plug in a USB lead to your ZED, select the USB routing on the mixer and the device on your computer and that's it! CD quality audio to and from your PC or Mac. Switches and connection through jack socket terminals provide different send/return configurations:-

Send Options:
- 1) Main Mix Left + Right (Post master Level)
- 2) Aux + FX bus (Aux is a pre-fade send, FX is a post-fade send)
- 3) Record Bus Left + Right (Separate stereo bus to Main Mix)

Return Options:
- 1) To Playback input (through jack socket break contacts)
- 2) To Stereo 2 channel (through jack socket break contacts)

ZED-10 features a responsive 3-band, swept mid frequency EQ design which utilises MusiQ – with optimised slope (or Q factor) for equalising individual instruments.

ZED-10's pre-amps are similar in design to our MixWizard range of mixers, but with a twist! Inputs 3 & 4 have a high impedance jack input capable of taking either a normal line level or a low level input from a guitar pickup. These newly designed inputs have been crafted with the aim of replicating the sound of a classic guitar or instrument tube pre-amp in a combo or head amp. An extremely high input impedance ensures loading on pick-ups is minimal and a Class A FET (field effect transistor) circuit powered from 48V is employed to give the valve-like gain stage. There is a gain "Boost" switch associated with the guitar inputs which boosts gain by 26dB to cater for instruments with very low level outputs and the overdrive characteristics of the guitar inputs are very similar to a valve (tube) circuit, being asymmetric and soft. All this makes for a wonderfully natural sound to be reproduced from the instrument, full of warmth and character.

Allen & Heath ZED-10 Analogue Mixer for Live Sound and Recording Features

- 4 mic/line inputs, 2 with Class A FET high impedance inputs
- Neutrik mic XLR
- Neutrik ¼-inch jacks
- 3 band EQ with MusiQ
- 2 auxes
- Sound image pan
- Illuminated PFL indicator
- Stereo returns & playback
- All inputs with level control
- 12 bar meters
- Responsive 3-band, swept mid EQ with MusiQ
- 2 stereo sources with MP3 player compatibility
- Separate 2-track record outputs
- Stereo playback input for 2-track replay
- XLR main stereo outputs with inserts
- Comprehensive monitoring
- Configurable USB stereo audio in/out
- Stereo monitor outs
- 48V microphone phantom power
- DI level switching for sub mixing

Allen & Heath ZED-10 Analogue Mixer for Live Sound and Recording Specifications

Input:
- Mono channel (XLR) Input -10 to –60dBu for nominal (+11dBu in max)
- Mono channel Line Input (Jack socket) +10 to –40dBu (+31dBu maximum)
- Stereo Input (Jack or phono sockets) 0dBu nominal (control = Off to +15dB)

Output:
- L/R Outputs ( XLR) Normal/DI out 0dBu/-30dBu +21dBu/-9dBu maximum
- Aux & FX Outputs (Jack sockets) 0dBu nominal. +21dBu maximum
- Record & Monitor Outputs (phono sockets) 0dBu nominal. +21dBu maximum

Frequency Response:
- Mic in to Mix L/R Out, 30dB gain +0.5/-1dB 10Hz to 30kHz
- Line in to Mix L/R out 0dB gain +0.5/-1dB 10Hz to 25kHz
- Stereo in to Mix L/R out +0.5/-1dB 10Hz to 30kHz

THD+n:
- Mic in to Mix L/R Out, 10dB gain 1kHz +10dBu out 0.002%
- Mic in to Mix L/R Out, 30dB gain 1kHz 0.01%
- Line in to Mix L/R out 0dB gain 0dBu 1kHz 0.003%
- Stereo in to Mix L/R out 0dB gain +10dBu 1kHz 0.002%
- Gtr Input to Mix L/R Out, 0dBu, Boost OUT 0.015%
- Gtr Input to Mix L/R Out, 0dBu, Boost IN 2% Second Harmonic

Headroom:
- Analogue Headroom from nominal (0Vu) 21dB
- USB in & out headroom from nominal (0Vu) 14dB

Noise:
- Mic Pre EIN @ max gain 150R input Z 22-22kHz -127dBu
- Mix L/R out, L/R faders = 0, Levels min, 22-22kHz -96dBu
- USB Audio CODEC (Coder/Decoder)
- USB Audio In/Out USB 1.1 compliant 16bit.
- Sample Rate 32, 44.1, or 48kHz

Physical:
- Dimensions (W x H x D): 336 x 95 x 275 mm
- Weight: 3.2 kg