Allen & Heath ZED-428 Live Sound & Recording 4-Bus Mixer w/USB

ZED-428 is excellent for bands, houses of worship, theatres or AV applications. It has a truly professional feature set, which will fit any sound reinforcement application and professional PA hire stock. ZED-428 has Configurable USB audio in/out makes it easy to capture stereo recordings, 24 mic or line inputs plus 2 dual stereo inputs, 4-band EQ with MusiQ, 4 sub-groups, 6 auxiliary sends and a 7×2 matrix.

FEATURES

• 24 mono channels
• 2 dual stereo inputs with 4-band EQ
• Neutrik mic XLR
• Neutrik 1/4 inch jacks
• Channel insert
• Super wide gain ‘DuoPre’ mic line input
• 4-band EQ with 2 swept mids and in/out switch
• Illuminated mute
• Sound image pan
• Illuminated PFL & peak warning indicator
• ALPS 100mm faders
• 6 auxiliary sends (2 pre, 2 post, 2 pre/post)
• 4 sub groups fed from each channel
• All inputs with level control
• 12 bar meters
• L, R and M main mix outputs
• 2 matrix sections available; can send output to USB
• Individual channel 48V phantom power
• Direct output on every mono channel
• Peak and signal indication on every channel
• Configurable USB stereo audio in/out
• Master level controls on all outputs
• Easy to use layout – all connections and controls on top surface

USB AUDIO FLEXIBILITY

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-fade)
2) Main Mix Left + Right (Pre-Fade)
3) Auxes 1-2
4) Auxes 5-6
5) Matrix 1-2

RETURN OPTIONS

1) To Playback input
2) To Stereo 3 channel

MUSIQ

ZED-428 features a responsive 3-band, swept mid frequency EQ design which utilises MusiQ – with optimised slope (or Q factor) for equalising individual instruments.

DUOPRE

Based on the proven pre-amps from the hugely successful PA series, ZED-428 has DuoPre pre-amps, which use a two stage design, with carefully controlled amounts of gain in each stage. When amplifying the signal from the XLR input, the gain range is huge – 69dB of range to be exact – and is very evenly distributed around the gain control, meaning better control of signal level. Most of the gain comes from the first stage, so unwanted noise is kept to a minimum. Line level signals are simply plugged into the second stage of the pre-amp by using the line input jack socket, which has the great advantage of less noise when using the line input and also matching to a higher input impedance.