Wanted a ZedR16 - May Have to Choose Something Else - Thoughts?

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nigelallistair

New member
Hello all,

I am spending the summer putting together a nice home studio for myself after having had a 15 year break to raise 4 sons. Time for me again and off I go.

I wanted (want) an A&H ZedR16. I intended to purchase it through Sweeetwater, American Musical Supply or Zzounds so I could string out the payments a bit. I have used these before in this manner to get alot of the preliminary things for the studio as well as some new instruments. It's worked out very well. But, as you may know, the Zed is out of stock and deeply backordered everywhere, including these three dealers. So I am stuck but fortunate in that I COULD buy it for cash if I had to and so I have look at doing that.

All I can find is two dealers on Ebay. One clearly says "B-Stock" and the other doesn't specify (I have emailed to ask but haven't heard back yet).

So.... my question is - What the heck could B-Stock mean to a guy like me? They say they're fully warrantied but the idea of dropping 2 Grand on something that has to be called "B-Stock" scares the crap outta me.

That said, it may be time to consider another board if I don't want to wait so unknown - and probably very long - period of time.

I've looked at he Mackie 1640i but it's not the Zed for sure. I like the Presonus StudioLive but have heard concerns about it being a for-real recording board (as opposed to a live board). But maybe it would work for a room like mine? Opinions are welcome but I will have to research everything to know. The Zed seemed such a dream board in so many ways and this is all a bit disappointing but what can you do? This will, though, be a very long-term investment for me so I want to be informed and confident.

Any thoughts on either the Ebay angle or the 1640i or StudioLive would be appreciated. I will be using an 27" i5 Imac using Logic 9.

Thanks much.
 
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I have not used a R16 and only you can know how important doing something right now vs. lust for a specific piece of gear might be

that said . . . while I've used a lot of Mackie's onyx boards and have one of the 1200 series (with F/W) functioning as something of a side car return in the current project studio I do think as a general rule the A&H boards are a notch above the Mackies. At the entry level I've always felt that A&H have, perhaps, the best faders on the market. And I prefer their EQ implementation . . . you can argue about it but tend to like A&H EQ better then Mackies.

I have no particular problem using Onyx preamps and have 800r that sees regular service both live and in the studio. Nor have I ever had any significant issues with Mackie build quality. But even here while A&H are not always pretty I still tend to believe they are built to survive hard use. I've used ones that endured club abuse and continued to survive for years. I'd be less sanguine about any used Mackie. (though I still have an orignal lower serial number 1202 that worked fine last time it was powered up)

For me an additional plus is support for the ADAT protocol which as I'm looking at R16 as a front end for live work provides a lot of interesting options.

Essentially I think the R16 is at least a slightly better option then the Mackie or Presonus . . . but before jumping on ebay (and 'bstock' can mean anything a retailer wants it to mean) I'd see if you can get any better info, directly from A&H, concerning supply. Since I'm in no rush, and might opt for 24 ultimately I haven't pushed to find the answer. But price was dropped after initial release (of R16) and US response was not overwhelming so it simply could be a manufacturing backlog with A&H being more interested in filling the pipeline with the r24. It is also rumored that a mkII, with digital fx, is in the works (for r16) which might be part of the issue. Additionally it is possible that A&H experienced 'issues' with F/W implementation 'drivers blah blah blah' and slowed production to resolve that

one thing I would not do is trust Sweetwater to be absolutely honest with you concerning ship date. This is not a specific criticism of Sweetwater (certainly not vs. anyother retailer . . . I will at least buy from them) merely based on experience that I have never (in more then a decade) have them meet a verbal backorder ship date (even when I patiently told them I had to have something in my hand by such and such a date because I was going on the road and if they could meet the date would prefer to cancel order (because I was going on the road) and reorder when I returned.)

good luck with returning to the fold
 
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