Allen & Heath ZED-420 12-Channel Mixer

The versatile ZED-420 12-Channel Mixer from Allen & Heath gives you the professionalism and quality you crave, whether you need excellent sound for a live concert, house of worship, theater, sound reinforcement, or other AV application. Delivering the tools you need to take your audio project to the next level, this mixer boasts 4-band EQ, Duopre amps, as well as 16 mic or line inputs plus 2 dual stereo inputs, 4 sub-groups, 6 auxiliary sends, and a 7×2 matrix.

Built into the ZED-420 is a responsive 4-band, swept mid-frequency EQ design at uses MusiQ. Its optimized slope (Q factor) allows you to precision-equalize individual instruments in your band.

The ZED-420 comes with DuoPre pre-amplifiers that use a 2-stage design and carefully controlled gain in each stage. These preamps boast a gain range of 69dB and reliably-even gain control when amplifying a signal from the mixer’s XLR input. Most of the gain comes from the first stage, which keeps unwanted noise to a minimum. Plug line level signals into the preamp’s second stage using the line input jack socket, which results in less noise when using line input or when matching a higher input impedance.

The ZED-420 comes with configurable USB audio inputs and outputs. No need to install external soundcards—just plug in a USB lead and select USB routing on the mixer to get started right away at your recording. This feature gives you CD-quality audio to and from your Mac or PC, while switches and connections via the mixer’s jack socket terminals offer a variety of send/return options. Rounding out the ZED-420’s connectivity options are 2 stereo inputs for MP3/CD players or keyboards, as well as professional XLR stereo outputs and a versatile monitoring section that lets you plug in headphones and/or speakers.