For my own gigs, I use this or any number of other A&H desks. I've always found the pres are nice and clean, and the EQ sensibly 'voiced' so that the band you grab instinctively is the one that you need. However, as a gigging musician doing my own sound at smaller venues, the quick load out and teardown quickly weeds out gear for another reason; durability. No other mini desks are built like this, with each pot bolted to the chassis, and there is a reassuring solidity to every connection. The rest of the gang in terms of competition feel worryingly fragile by comparison. Things I looked over were the lack of a 24bit audio interface - 16bit is a little outdated - and the lack of mute switching. This one is probably the one feature I miss most. Those also looking for bus flexibility will be left wanting. However, there are some feature that greatly add to the flexibility of this mixer; mainly the FET inputs, which do sound decent, and the option to use this as a sub-mixer by padding down the main outputs. Small mixers are always a compromise, but on balance, this sounds good, feels good, and has everything I need for a solo performance using a few channels. The onboard reverbs are decent, and the ability to change the FX send to AUX is a handy feature too often absent. If anyone is worried about pots instead of faders, of course there are other A&H models that cater for this, but if you think about it, pots stay where they are when this is put back in the gig bag, so I find it quite handy to retain the last-used mix settings. All-in-all, a great little mixer. Should it ever break, I know that the service from A&H will be top-notch.
