ALLEN & HEATH AVANTIS SOLO REVIEW - THE BEST 64 CHANNEL CONSOLE?

The Allen & Heath Avantis Solo has the potential to be very disruptive in the sub $10k audio console market. In this video I break down my thoughts on the system and show you why I chose to move our 9 remote campuses to Avantis.
Intro 0:00
Pros & Cons 8:35
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[@algilbert2347]

Use DCA spills to increase the number of "layers" available.

[@MattDoesAudio]

I should have mentioned this in the video, so I’m pinning your comment. 100% this is the workaround.

[@christiankansichi6622]

Did you consider the waves lv1? Also if you were consider making the sq your standard, how did it stack up against the wing?

[@MattDoesAudio]

Yeah I looked into both of these options in the past few years and these are my thoughts: LV1 is a little too new school for comfort. Not a bad system at all, but the benefits don’t outweigh potential points of failure at this scale. I wanted a traditional hardware solution with a modern toolset. I never considered the wing as a viable option. We have one at a campus and I dislike nearly everything about it. Music tribe’s customer support is nonexistent nowadays. (I actually have 2 wing units bc of failing touch screens and parts availability. At least now while one is in the shop, I have the other one deployed) I wanted to like it, but it’s trying to do too much with not enough horsepower. The wing tried to reinvent the wheel while all we really wanted was an X48/X32 Pro. Wing is also too large for most of our production booths anyway. I like the SQ. It’s not perfect, but most of the early bugs it had have been worked out through software. Build quality is really good. The custom fader banks are great. The FX sound a thousand times better than anything from behringer as well. Not a massive deal to most people but 96khz is pretty cool at that price point as well. The only advantage I would give the wing is the ability to use the Midas Pro stage boxes like the DL251. I’m a sucker for the Midas preamps and the absolutely sound more musical than any of the A&H pres.

[@andygriffiths7230]

You should buy the IP8 fader wing for your console.

[@drummerboy100jh]

I remember when the Avantis was 8,999, the solo should be 6,999. Pricing has gone crazy!

[@MattDoesAudio]

I know.. it's really wild to think about.

[@drummerboy100jh]

Have you worked with the 64 channel studiolive III mixer? Half the price. Seems easy for volunteers, especially running it with a 12 inch ipad or bigger windows tablet.

[@MattDoesAudio]

@@drummerboy100jh I have and I was really disappointed 😔 I really wanted to like it but the UI is a nightmare to use imo. The one I used was super choppy and would take multiple seconds to respond to inputs on the screen. It’s possible that’s been fixed in software updates, but I would personally steer clear of the studio live system as a whole. That was just my experience though.

[@drummerboy100jh]

Thats aggravating when new mixers come out while their still working out the bugs in the software. The ones I know using it have not had issues like that since updates. Im curious was that on apple or windows software? Thanks for your input.

[@MattDoesAudio]

@@drummerboy100jh I’m just talking about the actual mixer itself. It was really odd, it almost felt like a virtual machine with how laggy it was.

[@therealcalebrz]

thoughts on the 225 vs full size avantis? You've been mixing on the 225, avantis would seem like a downgrade for an experienced engineer?

[@MattDoesAudio]

Yeah, I should’ve clarified. We are not changing that system out. I was referring to our remote campuses. The 225 is much nicer haha

[@MrWillihelmdueck]

Have you considered LV1?

[@MattDoesAudio]

I have! It's a really cool system. It just wouldn't be something I would implement at our remote campuses tbh. I have personally considered investing in it for myself though. I need to get my hands on one to see if it would suite my workflow.

[@MrWillihelmdueck]

I think the scalability of it is plus for remote locations. You could get a small setup and upgrade control, channel count and IO as you go. Also I think it is easy to train volunteers and as it is a PC, you can always remote into it and fix any software issue they have. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out.

[@asilva_media]

great video! i will say, the avantis full size lags worse than the SQ with dyn8 open, AMM, or switching fader pages it hangs a decent amount and it forgets scenes a lot. but never crashes.

[@MattDoesAudio]

Dannnngggg yeah I’m optimistic with Avantis being more from the dlive family, but I wish they could get a handle on this. It’s really stressful to use a system that “feels” like it’s struggling even if it’s functionally ok. Most of our campuses wouldn’t be stressing the cpu too much on Avantis so 🤞🏻

[@asilva_media]

@@MattDoesAudio that's facts. i think the audio processing FPGA is totally separate from the surface controller too, ive had the surface freeze but audio was still okay and it came back after a few seconds. plus with the solo its only driving 1 screen and less faders so it might be faster too.