Allen & Heath ZED 24 Review: The Best Guide Before Buying!
If you’re a DJ, chances are, you’ve come across the brand of Allen & Heath, known for their audio mixing machines as its main business. A&H also makes DJ mixers for nightclubs and sound management tools.
With that, let’s review one of A&H’s ever-popular mixers available, the ZED-24 audio mixer.
Pros And Cons:
Allen & Heath ZED-24 Audio Mixer
Allen & Heath has been making mixing desks for skilled sound engineers for almost 40 years, so the ZED-24 audio mixer has a great history. The sound circuitry in the ZED-24 mixer is the result of years of growth and improvement. Every part of the mixer has been fine-tuned to give you the best sound quality possible.
A lot of people will like this mixer, from beginners to experts. Musicians, places, and rental companies can use the ZED-24 Mixer, which has 10 full mono channels and 4 stereo channels in a small, rack-mountable package. It is easy to make sound recordings with USB audio in/out that can be set up.
It sounds great, is built to last, and has some cool functions. You can use the ZED-24 mixer to run your show on stage, record live, or mix it down in your home studio.
The Allen & Heath ZED-24 Mixer has a very high level of features for a mixer at this price point. It has 23 separate sources that can be added to the mix, 10 separate outputs, 4 aux sends, configurable USB audio in/out that makes it easy to record, playback, and add effects in stereo, a unique dual stereo input feature, and some very high-level monitoring features.
There are so many great things about the Allen & Heath ZED-24 Mixer that you’d think it would cost a lot more. Let’s check it out below.
USB Audio Flexibility
For live sound and music production, it’s now necessary to be able to quickly move audio to and from a computer. The way this is set up on the Allen & Heath ZED-24 Mixer is very flexible and simple. You don’t have to mess around in the back of your PC to get to the sound card ports and then find that the levels are off and there is a lot of noise. All you have to do is connect a USB lead to your Allen & Heath ZED-24 Mixer and choose the USB route on both the mixer and your computer. Music from and to your PC or Mac that sounds like a CD. Different send/return configurations can be made with switches or by connecting through jack socket contacts.
Build Quality
ZED-24 uses vertically placed channel circuit boards, and each rotary control is bolted to the front panel with a metal nut, resulting in a considerably more durable and reliable product. ZED also comes with high-quality 100mm faders for precise volume adjustment.
MusiQ
When it comes to equalizing individual instruments, the Allen & Heath ZED-24 Mixer’s 3-band, sweeping mid-frequency EQ design with MusiQ – with adjusted slope (or Q factor) – is second to none.
Inputs
Each of the four stereo channels has a main stereo input on a jack socket, and the device can also accept extra stereo inputs from phono sockets or the USB audio input, giving you a lot of control. In total, ZED-24’s front panel has 129 different buttons. The ZED-24 has sixteen mic/line channels, which is more than enough for mics or DI boxes for bigger bands or demanding usages that need more sources than the ZED-14. 3 of the 4 stereo line ports can handle two signals at the same time. Different strength controls are available for each input.
Auxiliary Sends
The first two aux sends can be used for foldback monitoring before the fade-in, and the last two can be used after the fade-out to provide signals for effects. Two independent record feeds (1&2) can be made from the auxes via USB to the computer, and the feeds (3&4) can be utilized as FX sends.
DuoPre
Built on the highly popular PA series’ tried-and-true preamps, the ZED series adds new DuoPre preamps with a two-stage design and carefully managed gain levels in each stage. When the signal from the XLR input is amplified, the gain range is very large (69dB), and it is spread out very widely around the gain control. This means that signals can be controlled more precisely. Unwanted noise is kept to a minimum because the first step gives most of the gain. By plugging the line input jack socket into the second stage of the pre-amp, line-level sounds are easily connected. Using the line input has the big benefit of reducing noise.
EQ section
ZED-24 has a sensitive 3-band, swept mid-frequency design and a MusiQ-optimized slope (or Q factor) for balancing each instrument. In addition, HF and LF have Xtra Boost, which gives you more power.
SONAR LE
Allen & Heath and Cakewalk have collaborated to offer SONAR LE as a bonus with this ZED mixer. They work well together for various purposes, including the simple recording of a stereo mix, the recording of individual tracks to construct a song, and the insertion of a SONAR LE effects plug-in.
Where To Buy?
Buy here
Takeaway
Go over to the internet right now and surf through hundreds of reviews regarding the A&H ZED-24 Audio Mixer. In there, you’ll find testimonies about how great it is and how tasteful with matters concerning its durability, build, and efficiency.
We’re not going to make the choice you’re making, but we are here to nudge you in the right direction, in case you’re planning on buying this lovely piece of equipment to complete your ideal home studio setup. Happy shopping!
Why You Should Read Reviews Before Buying
While finding a perfect set of studio mixers (or any other devices for that matter) can be a bit of a headache, you need to explore more on your options rather than settling down on the first thing that you see. As smart buyers, we know how important it is to do research on a product and think about its pros and cons before we buy it. with that, it’s great that the internet gives us access to so much information that we can learn everything we need to know about a piece of equipment before we decide to buy it. So, there should be no excuses on your part as a smart buyer.