Qu-32 Chrome : Allen and Heath Qu32

I bought this digital mixing desk for use in a theatre and arts centre. We do about 3 or 4 live music gigs each month and had been getting by with an old Allen and Heath GL 4000 analogue desk and all the outboard kit that goes with it.

I am not a sound engineer and would admit to just knowing the basics. I had used a Yamaha M7 Cl before this and was hoping that the Allen and Heath would be something similar. For the money, this desk is fantastic, its is very very intuitive and straight forward to navigate even for a fair weather sound engineer like myself. It sounds great and is super light weight and compact. I absolutely love this desk and whilst an m7 might sound just a little bit crisper this desk is every bit as good for small to medium sized gigs - how they've packed so much into such a small desk is amazing. It's even capable of recording directly onto an external hard drive which is one step further than an M7. Bottom line, dont spend €14k on a Yamaha m7, buy this instead. I've also used the Behringer X32 which is similar in price, again, this desk is far more direct in its navigation and has less flippy floppy features that you dont really need.