all right i'm Dave Rat and this is the first of several videos i don't know how many i'm going
to do comparing contrasting and taking a general look at the behringer x32 versus the midas m32
i'm gonna dive into the two consoles where you know there's a lot i love looking at
dispelling rumors and testing things out and seeing if they're true
and there's a lot of chatter out there about the differences between the consoles
i want to find out what's real and what's not and also i have a personal interest in it in that
people are touring coming through a lot of the festivals and shows that we do as a sound
company rat sound with m32s primarily but x32s as well and we've run into some challenges with um
cat5 lengths the length of cat5e or cat grade cable that's run typically
our snakes front of house snakes are 100 meters and that works with a lot of the digital formats
and sometimes we're running into issues where the m32 to the stage box
is having trouble communicating and same thing with the x32 so i'm going to use these tests to
find the cables that work best and what the maximum lengths i can run them
and we'll implement that into our front of house snake so that rat sound is able to
supply cables that we know work at 100 meters if we're all successful which i believe i will be and
also try and determine what the issues are what the challenges are with some of the other cables
that don't work over 80 meters or shorter lengths cool this is a brand new x32 i bought for the
adventure here and a friend of mine angel's going to loan me an m32 i'll get next week and
we'll start we'll look at that and start plugging them into each other
let's see one of the rumors i heard was that the one of the differences between the m32 and x32
is the connectors on the back that the m32 utilizes nitric connectors on all the xlrs
throughout and the x32 does not and yes i was able to confirm that there are neutrik connectors on
the four pin lamp connector and on the ethercons on the x32 but all of the xlrs across are not
they are they have a logo look similar to a neutral but it's not a neutral connector and you
can tell that by the metal tab doesn't have the neutrik N on it so there's one little difference
that may definitely has an impact on the cost differentials the neutrik do cost more and i
know this because sound tools uses all nitric connectors we're one of the largest purchasers
of nitric in north america for the sound tools products and yeah we use them we really like them
okay so let's get started what i've got here is the x32 of course i've got another small behringer
why not compare a behringer to a behringer i've got a little behringer xenyx x-e-n-y-x 1204
It's a little six input or so mixer i've got this wonderful fluke tone generator synthesizer here
and it's very accurate i can precision click and set various levels and tones
i've got it set at 500 hertz right now and then i've got this beautiful Dorrough
meter i'll take this camera back and look at the fluke there's the fluke
there's the behringer and there's the x32 and there is the Dorrough meter now the Dorrough meter
is absolutely wonderful it's got a very wide range and there's an led for every single db
all the way up and i can't read it right now let's see what it says it goes from minus 25
to plus 14 in 1db led increments and i've got a rotary switch here which adjusts the
input level in 1 db increments and everything's accurate and precise
and then a level switch so it'll go from plus 20 to minus 40. let's go ahead and start so the
first thing i'm going to do is i'm going to send this 500 hertz tone i've got it set with the gain
knob on the x 32 and i've got the gain set at 0 db plus minus 0 unit d or whatever that is
and i've got the output of the tone generator set at 1.3 volts kind of an arbitrary voltage but um
now i will bring the fader up let's do it here and i'll bring the fader up to exactly 0 db
and the test that we're going to be doing today is we're going to look at we're going to dispel
or address the concept that the x32 has a lower output than
an analog console and also look at where unity gain is and where the metering is on an x32
versus an analog console for reference point what are the maximum output levels and what is the
metering for unity so now i've set the fader at zero i've got the gain at zero it's bus
directly to left and right at which point i'll also set the fader exactly at zero and i'm not
going to do this with a scope today to keep things simple we'll just do this off of the clip lights
very gently i'll try and get this exactly to zero there we go now the fader is reading exactly zero
so now we're zero on the end zero on the fader zero on the out unity gain all the way through and
we are looking at our Dorrough meter here which is set in the one degree increment right at zero
and the meter is reading plus four so um unity gain all the way through has got up +4 db out
i won't get into all those db com explanations because they confuse me
as well but what i will talk about is let's look at the metering so with the gain at 0 db
the meter is at minus 18. so that's that minus 18 db fs or whatever which is the unity gain for the
digital console you read about there's a minus 18 on the meter and the faders are zero goes all
the way to the main out and it goes up here and it's at minus 21. uh why that is i don't know but
that's just the way it is at this point i'll have to look into that later so 0 db all the way
through it shows minus 21 on the out and it shows plus 4 db now let's go ahead and use this baseline
and look at the analog console so that's showing up on this other meter here and what i will do is
i will set the fader visually since i don't have a digital readout exactly as close as i can get
it approximate exactly approximately a zero and i will set the output fader exactly approximately at
zero and then i will bring the gain up until it is exactly approximately the same as the
um x32 so i'll get this up to plus four db so now the digital console
and the analog console have are set with their faders at zero the output fader
input faders are zero and the gain knobs are set to 0 db on the digital console
and it's i don't have a perfect precision so we'll set it where it calibrates to it
so here's something interesting with these two boards calibrated together and such the output
is identical on both consoles the fader that means the meter on the analog console is reading minus
seven so the minus and the output on the digital console is reading minus 21. so we have an offset
there that's interesting let's go ahead and do something a little different here let's bring
the output of the digital console up to this minus 18. oh so it was just one click so it
probably was there on the digital console i've just barely touched it that's at -18 and now we're
reading plus four still so the digital console was minus 18 is correct uh we're just a metering so
slightly off which corresponds to -7 on the analog console um let's take the analog console i'm going
to bring the gain up on the analog console until it gets up to zero on the meter so now the analog
console is zero and the digital console is at -18 which is its digital zero which is a minus 18 dbs
and now let's look at the output differential the analog console is putting out
plus 10 and the digital console is putting out plus four so with bulls at their nominal metering
there's six db more output on this little behringer digi analog console um
fair enough um so if we were mixing and doing everything by the book and mixing on the digital
console so that we were running right around that minus 18 mark and maybe peeking over a
little bit doing the same thing on the analog console you would have 6 db more output on this
analog console that's a considerable level it's um four times the power out
and a noticeable level difference but let's find out where these things clip so now what
i'm going to do is i'm going to bring the analog console all the way up until i see the clip light
and we'll do i'll do this on the scope later if this is incongruent with the clip lights
off or whatever so i get a clip that just barely lit on the analog console and i'm going to do
the same thing using faders just like i did with the analog console on the digital console
and i'm going to bring this up to its clip which is right there
cool and now our meters are pegged so what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna drop the level of
the meter down until one of these gets down to zero well i'll go to i set the meter at plus 20.
so the meter set at plus 20 um the digital console is showing plus one so i'm seeing
about a maximum output on the digital console at plus 21 and on the analog console
i'm seeing plus five in addition to plus 20 so i'm seeing a maximum output of about plus 25. um
so plus 21 plus 25 that's saying that all things being equal pushing both consoles to clip
this little analog console's got 4 db more output before it clips than the digital console um
based on the clip lights alone so this is the visual and using the clip lights alone
is important because this is what you're mixing to this is the visual aspect and this is a cheap
little console but it's got four more outputs but this is also there's a cheap big console so
um just kind of uh apples to apples here or i don't know apples to oranges um cool so
let's summarize really quick the um zero db point on an analog console corresponds to the minus 18
part of the meter metering on the digital console those do line up when those are lined up the x32
puts out 6 db less output than the analog console so it's lower so you'd actually have to push this
60b harder which means you're going to run a run if you want to run the same as analog console
or you're switching over you're going to run this at -12 and you'd run this around zero then
when you get all the way up to where you're clipping this x32 is going to clip 4 db
before the behringer at least by the clip lights there's going to be 4 db less output
on the behringer than there will be on this behringer uh behringer digital than there
will be on this behringer analog um so app puts a little soft not um the end of the world but also
something to know and could be useful um when switching over uh what i would probably do
if i was switching from an analog console or if i was uh used to mixing on an analog console or
just implementing uh this x32 i would add four to six db gain stage following this console
somewhere else down the line to make up gains so that if i added 6 db that means this minus
18 point would correspond to the zero point that i'm useful used to and everything would line up
if there's negative ramifications from noise floors and stuff maybe i'll look into that
but there's a starting point and the first of several videos
uh just a heads up other videos i'm going to do on this um visual differentials uh you know like
the neutrik connector versus the non-neutrik or off-brand anything i can see that's um different
uh preamp overload i'm gonna see where the preamps overload on an m32 versus an x32 i'm going to
listen to and make it so we can all hear over the video the sound of the digital overload of this
analog overload of those preamps are the midas preamps different how different do they sound
than the non-midas preamps on the x32 um do they have more headroom on one versus the other
i'm going to try nulling i'm going to try taking the same signal and running it into two channels
turning it up and get that null in order to hear that preamp but i'm also going to try it between
the two consoles so i'll run the same signal into an x32 and an m32 polarity reverse one sum them
together maybe on an analog console and we'll listen to an x32 nulling itself an m32 nulling
itself and x32 versus an m32 knowing each other so we can hear the differences or any differences
that occur uh we can try that down channel too we can try like channel one nulling channel 32
to see if there's differentials regard regarding where you're plugged into the board
cable length like i talked about i'm going to look at cable length i'll get 100 meter cables
of various types see which ones work which ones don't and then some extensions maybe a 10 20 30
40 and 50 meter extensions and then i'll apply those same extensions to multiple cables and
we'll find out where those various cables stop working and see which ones give us the most
length there which one you know it help us weed out the weak ones there uh what else i'll talk
about cable what those possible issues are i've heard all kinds of information regarding what
whether they need to be shielded or not shielded the shells need to be shielded not shielded um pvc
versus polyurethane cable versus rubber cable static electricity concerns and finally
summing buses i want to look at something bus i want to take the same signal and run it into
multiple channels and sum them together and then maybe a single channel and take those two things
and know those apart and see if there's any math errors with the summing busses and if there is um
on either console if they're the same or different all right super nerdy stuff um also let me know
other tests you want me to do i've got some great responses so far and i'll try and cover it cool