How to buy a digital mixer

In recent years, with the development of digital audio technology, the price of digital audio mixer tends to be popular, quickly set off the tide of digital audio mixer. In this trend, the major manufacturers continue to innovate, developed different levels, different forms of digital mixer.

The homogeneity of the function of digital mixer is very obvious, and there are many choices of digital mixer in the market. Faced with different brands and highly homogeneous digital mixers, ordinary users are easy to have difficulty in choosing. Usually, users can only choose by horizontal comparison of features, performance parameters, price, appearance and so on. How to buy a suitable digital mixer? Has become the question of many users. Xiaobian suggests starting from the following points.

A look at the use of requirements: where is the digital mixer used? What functionality needs to be implemented?

According to the scale of sound amplification system, first determine the number of input and output channels needed. The input and output channels of the sound console can not only meet the needs of normal work, but also consider a number of standby channels to meet the needs of system expansion, temporary increase and work backup.

Another is to focus on the amplification system to the digital mixer function requirements. The functions of a common console focus on audio processing and control, such as channel gain, low cut, equalization, dynamic processing, channel marshalling, effects, etc. In addition, whether you need USB playback, Bluetooth playback, headset monitoring, iPad or mobile phone wireless control, etc.

Second look at the budget: according to the budget, select a few can meet the needs of the use of digital mixer for horizontal comparison.

Three audio performance indicators, including: frequency response, total harmonic distortion, signal-to-noise ratio, gain and so on. Excellent technical performance indicators are the primary criteria for choosing a digital mixer.

Frequency response

Frequency response is the basic audio parameters of all electroacoustic equipment. It is the frequency range that the audio system can replay within the range allowed by the amplitude, and the amount of change in the signal within this range is called frequency response, also called frequency characteristics. For the digital mixer product, it has a flat frequency response in the full frequency band (20HZ-20 kHz), and its amplitude deviation is within ±1 dB. Meeting this standard means that the device is well designed.

2. Total harmonic distortion

The total harmonic distortion is the square root of the ratio of the total harmonic energy to the fundamental energy. Harmonic distortion is caused by the nonlinearity of amplifier, the result of distortion is to make amplifier output produced the harmonic component that does not have in original signal, make the voice lost original timbre, serious when the voice can send broken, harsh. The distortion of equipment with higher requirements should generally be below 0.05%

3. Signal-to-noise ratio

Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is the ratio of signal to noise in an electronic device or system, usually expressed in decibels. The higher the SNR of the device, the less noise it produces. Generally speaking, the higher the SNR, the less noise mixed in the signal and the higher the sound quality of the sound playback, otherwise the opposite is true.

The biggest gain

Gain is a parameter of the amplifying performance of a signal. The ratio of output to input is the amplification factor, and the decibel number after logarithm is the gain. The maximum gain of the mixing console must be 60dB, good digital mixing console has 70dB.

Four to see whether the operation is simple and convenient

The operation of the tuner is carried out through various potentiometers and switch buttons, and the main volume fader potentiometer operation of each channel is more frequent. Therefore, easy operation and simple maintenance are the important conditions for selecting the mixing console.

In general, when buying a digital mixer, we should give full consideration to the function, technical parameters, materials and sound quality of electronic components of the digital mixer. We must be comprehensive and constant, and cannot simply look at the function or price.