Allen & Heath Frankfurt Preview

British mixer manufacturer, Allen & Heath, will be showing a cross section of its latest products at the forthcoming Pro Light & Sound exhibition in Frankfurt.

Exhibiting in Hall 8.0 Stand C22, a highlight on the stand will be the newly launched iDR-16 3U MixRack and iLive-R72 rackmountable Control Surface, which together provide a space saving, lightweight digital live mixing system, bringing the same power, sonic performance and flexibility of the larger touring iLive systems to a significantly lower price point. The company will also be demonstrating new features in the latest version of its iLive software v1.6.

Allen & Heath will also be launching a new club installation product, the Xone:PB. The Xone patchbay is a 1U rack size, passive interface box, designed to simplify the task of connecting encoded vinyl replay systems to installed mixers, without the need to re-patch.

Also from the Xone DJ range, Allen & Heath will be launching the Xone:XD40 headphones. Offering excellent audio fidelity in a comfortable, lightweight and compact format, their closed cup design provides good isolation from ambient noise, and minimal bleed. The Xone:XD40's have 40mm neodymium drivers, a 15Hz - 28kHz frequency response, can handle up to 1.3W of power, and at just over 200g, are lightweight for extended use.

Finally, the super compact ZED-10 and ZED-10FX mini mixers will be making their European debut following their launch at NAMM 2010. Part of the ZED range of USB-equipped mixers for live performance, recording and production, the new additions feature two innovative ultra high impedance discrete Class A FET (Field Effect Transistor) inputs, which allow an instrument to be plugged directly into the mixer. There is also a 26dB gain boost switch, which caters for instruments with very low output pickups.

The ZED-10 and 10FX can also manage up to four microphones and two stereo sources with MP3 player compatibility, provide separate 2-track record outputs and a stereo playback input for 2-track replay or interval music from a CD player, XLR main stereo outputs with inserts, comprehensive monitoring with headphones and separate monitor speaker outputs, 48V microphone phantom power, and DI level switching for sub mixing. There is also a USB send and return for PC or Mac recording, playback and effects.