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Presonus Reliability Poll


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When I saw the first generation PreSonus digital board,I wanted one.I still do,but I can't get one,and it will be a while before I can.I do like the reliability of my MixWiz,and I am certain that it will be fine until I can upgrade to a PreSonus digital board.

 

 

IF (big if, but still....) the responses over there are any indication of overall reliability, then I'd have to question why you'd consider the Presonus to be an "upgrade". I could live with the issues mentioned IF the board was only used for practice, but that's a lot of coin to have to put up with anything less than reliable.

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IF (big if, but still....) the responses over there are any indication of overall reliability, then I'd have to question why you'd consider the Presonus to be an "upgrade". I could live with the issues mentioned IF the board was only used for practice, but that's a lot of coin to have to put up with anything less than reliable.

 

 

With the exeception of one negative post with a pretty outrageous claim, most of the posts over there were positive. I know I went from a GL 2200 to a SL and for me it was a huge "upgrade". As with most technology, proper set up with the right peripheral equipment is the key to success. I just completed another successful weekend with my SL using the iPod app and I won't be going back to analog! I will keep my A&H GL 2 as backup though.

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IF (big if, but still....) the responses over there are any indication of overall reliability, then I'd have to question why you'd consider the Presonus to be an "upgrade". I could live with the issues mentioned IF the board was only used for practice, but that's a lot of coin to have to put up with anything less than reliable.

 

 

???? - One guy had an issue with cross talk. The only other "issue" is the muting when you disconnect the firewire or stop the driver on your computer. That's not a failure. Like it or not, it's supposed to work that way. There's no reason you need to do anything that woud cause the board to mute like that during the show.

 

I have over 3 1/2 yrs and 191 shows on mine and no problems with the board itself. Some frustrations early on with recording using a Windows PC (macbook solved that) and occasionally ipad not hooking up all the time with the mixer. Even if the recording and remote mixing is thrown away, it's still an upgrade from a Mixwiz (my former board).

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I've had mine for 2.5 year and about 140 shows. My early problems with dirty power were fixed by a UPS. Mine permanently lives in our non-climate controlled trailer and it has been very reliable. I would probably say it's the single best investment I can remember making in my sound system. YMMV.

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Our 16.4.2 has given us no problems since we got it back in March or so.

 

A 24ch SL we rented had problems. Random, periodic crackling noise that was short and loud. Came through all the input meters, main bus, and all the auxes. We had no backups so every few minutes, the noise would happen and everyone would turn to me like WTF ARE YOU DOING

 

extremely embarrassing. we just chalked it up to rental gear. we didn't have to pay for the rental, at least.

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I have two SL16.4.2 boards and have had the first one since spring of 2010. I've used them for live sound gigs and occasional recording, doubled them up for 32 channels, and have remote mixed with the ipad interface. I would say that much of the reliability issue is due to user error but also that older production units are more likely to have have design problems that lead to failures in the field.

 

I did have a lot of problems when a Sony Vaio with built in firewire was used for recording. Well this was my error as the internal Ricoh firewire chipset was documented by Presonsus as being incompatable. So I got a star tech card and that solved most of the problem.

 

Next I continue to have occasional audio dropouts when the firewire cable would get jarred loose from the SL16 or the PC, or the hokey express card form factor Firewire card would get bumped and pop out. So I taped all that stuff down and made that problem go away.

 

Next I had problems with low grade power and board re-boots at a couple of venues. After a momentary loss of sound the board usually rebooted and came back where it left off. But after this happened three times in one show I started using a UPS battery back up. That solved that particular problem.

 

 

Next I continued to have occasional problems when the PC was connected but this turned out to be my error again as I was using the laptop as a general purpose machine and had a lot of programs and background processses running that could cause conflicts. Once I dedicated the machine for audio and tweaked it to work well with the SL16 things got a lot better. This involved setting the machine to never go asleep, force all devices to always stay on even with the lid closed, turning off the wireless radio, never ever letting the machine automatically update anything, especially windows 7 or any kind of device drivers, got rid of other audio programs, got rid of virus protection, cleaned up the autostart sequence, and created a special startup and operational routine specifically for the SL16, things got a lot better. Now some of this might not have been necessary, but if you can afford to dedicate the machine to just working with Presonus, you have fewer variables to contend with.

 

Next I started to see what appeared to be a pattern of occasional issues well into a show after I had a lot of processing engaged and I plugged the BNC light in. But the problems were too spurious to really be sure what caused them.

 

Now this is not to say I had a problem every show but I would say that 50% of the time there would be one or more mometary losses of audio. So by now I had become extremely gun shy and did whatever I could to maintain the most stable and low stress situation for the board. This included always using the battery backup UPS, no longer daisy chaining to get 32 channels, not connecting a computer (no firewire whatsoever), keeping phantom power channels to a minimum, and avoiding using the BNC board light. I also always carried the second board as a backup.

 

I thought I had a set of operating procedures that would prevent any dropouts and did have a couple of problem free shows. But on the next gig after a successful sound check and smooth opening band set, the board became unresponsive just before the headliner was to start. It would not recover from multiple reboots, switching FW ID, etc. Fortunately I had the headliners show pretty much built and ready to go on the backup board and the show was only delayed by 20 minutes. (as if that was acceptable)

 

This was all with the "old" board" and after taking it home and "re-flashing" the on board memory, it started working again as if nothing was ever wrong. Well I had to get to the bottom of this as I am starting to get higher profile shows and really needed to decide whether to dump these boards or not. I really love the features and the sound but obviously have to have reliablity. I started doing some testing at home to try and quantify the problem and realized that I could acutally force the old board to fail. If I engage enough processing like gates and compression on most channels, then plug in the BNC light, the board would re-boot! OK this was actually good to be able to re-create the problem. It would seem to explain the failures late into a show after I had gradually added more and more fine adjustments like gates on toms and overheads, compression on more and more instruments, etc. and then plugged in the BNC light when it stated gettin dark.

 

The really good news is that I could not get the newer board to fail with this kind of stress testing. Why I continued to use the old board as my primary and the new one as the backup for the last year I am not sure. But now the new boad is the primary and I have done two shows without problems. I am optomistic that the new board is actully very reliable as I read reports from lots of users that have no problems at all. Revisiting the presonus forums and other other boards that discuss failures I see a fairly large body of evidence that older power supplies were weak and the DSP cards had a pattern of failure and that these issues have been addressed in the newer production units. And if I really think about it all the problems I had were with the old board. So as soon as the season winds down the old board will go in for factory upgrades.

 

None of this really addresses the frailty of the Firewire interface. The ease with which the master clock gets disrupted and causes audio dropouts is an achiles heel in my opinion also. Even though they could be considered user errors, there are just too many little things that seem to cause a drop out. As a result I still do not feel comfortable using the board to it's full potential at a live gig. Even though I have done shows with two board daisy chained while live recording and mixing with the Ipad, I go for the simplist setup I can get away with today. In a word - this thing is "finicky".

 

Do I love the feature set, sound quality, and price point of the SL16 - Yes. Do I think it is ready for prime time - No. Can I afford a pro level digital board - No. Do I want to lug around all the stuff for Analog - No. Do I want to trade it in on an X32? Not yet, not after my past B**inger experiences. So I will continue on with the SL16's and assume I have figured out how to use them in a reliable manner. Time will tell...

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That "poll" is far too small a sample to be useful. From the reports that I have heard, it's apparently fairly reliable, with most preported problems centered around using a recording interface to a computer. I have never used one, I'm a very content O1v96 user. I can say that it has a very loyal following, not many actual users bash them, most complaints seem to be used to justify a non-purchase.

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As has been pointed out MANY times - people tend to jump on forums to ask for help with a problem or express frustration with a piece of equipment that is not performing as they expect. Rarely do people take the time to just post that they purchased a product and it has performed as they expected. I am a perfect example of that. I have owned a 16.4.2 for 2 years and have not had any real issues. Only issue I had was trying to record with an older PC laptop with F400 built in. Found many people with the same issue and decided to just pick up a Mac Mini and install it in the rack with the SL. Not an issues since I did that.

 

So trying to decide the reliability based on posts in forums is sketchy at best.

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As has been pointed out MANY times - people tend to jump on forums to ask for help with a problem or express frustration with a piece of equipment that is not performing as they expect. Rarely do people take the time to just post that they purchased a product and it has performed as they expected. I am a perfect example of that. I have owned a 16.4.2 for 2 years and have not had any real issues. Only issue I had was trying to record with an older PC laptop with F400 built in. Found many people with the same issue and decided to just pick up a Mac Mini and install it in the rack with the SL. Not an issues since I did that.

 

So trying to decide the reliability based on posts in forums is sketchy at best.

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???? - One guy had an issue with cross talk. The only other "issue" is the muting when you disconnect the firewire or stop the driver on your computer. That's not a failure. Like it or not, it's supposed to work that way. There's no reason you need to do anything that woud cause the board to mute like that during the show.


I have over 3 1/2 yrs and 191 shows on mine and no problems with the board itself. Some frustrations early on with recording using a Windows PC (macbook solved that) and occasionally ipad not hooking up all the time with the mixer. Even if the recording and remote mixing is thrown away, it's still an upgrade from a Mixwiz (my former board).

 

 

Of the 11 replies, I saw the following:

 

Post #2: Lost effects during an upgrade.

#3: Suffered a major failure, board was repaired, then later has a crosstalk problem that can't be fixed and requires a workaround.

#5: Third-person report of a firmware failure.

#6: Retailer of the product reports 9 of 12 sales were returned for various reasons, cites a common problem is a failure in the PSU due to a resistor.

#8: Board mutes for one to several seconds under certain conditions using Firewire.

 

Even if we throw out the worst negative and the best positive responses, statistically 4 out of 9 is a poor record. The nature of the problems is also somewhat troubling, especially issues that sound as if they won't/can't be fixed.

 

If a Behringer board did this stuff, I'm betting there would be a different response to questions about reliability. Stating that muting of sound doesn't consititute a failure may be accurate, but in my opinion isn't tolerable in a $2,000 16-channel product.

 

I've no dog in this hunt, and keep in mind that I am questioning the notion that this board is an upgrade.

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Of the 11 replies, I saw the following:


Post #2: Lost effects during an upgrade.

#3: Suffered a major failure, board was repaired, then later has a crosstalk problem that can't be fixed and requires a workaround.

#5: Third-person report of a firmware failure.

#6: Retailer of the product reports 9 of 12 sales were returned for various reasons, cites a common problem is a failure in the PSU due to a resistor.

#8: Board mutes for one to several seconds under certain conditions using Firewire.


Even if we throw out the worst negative and the best positive responses, statistically 4 out of 9 is a poor record. The nature of the problems is also somewhat troubling, especially issues that sound as if they won't/can't be fixed.


If a Behringer board did this stuff, I'm betting there would be a different response to questions about reliability. Stating that muting of sound doesn't consititute a failure may be accurate, but in my opinion isn't tolerable in a $2,000 16-channel product.


I've no dog in this hunt, and keep in mind that I am
questioning
the notion that this board is an upgrade.

 

 

Well the answer to your question is this board is a huge upgrade. You should try one.

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I'm not sure that it would be an upgrade in the conventional sense. I doubt that it sounds or works better or is more reliable than a MixWiz.

It sure would be a lot more convenient than hauling enough outboard equipment to get the equivalent functionality of the Sl though.

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Well the answer to your question is this board is a huge upgrade. You should try one.

 

 

It may be, but it may not be depending on where the user's priorities are. For most of MY applications, the number one priority is reliability and uptime. For a major client, we have installed 10 systems that operate 24/7 for about a month and over 20 years we have encountered zero mixer failures, and this is without regulated power, without UPS's, etc. For their application, upgrading to increased failures would be a definate downgrade. (Some of) the added features might be nice at times, certainly more convenient when needed, but absolutely not at the cost of reliability.

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Of the 11 replies, I saw the following:


Post #2: Lost effects during an upgrade.

#3: Suffered a major failure, board was repaired, then later has a crosstalk problem that can't be fixed and requires a workaround.

#5: Third-person report of a firmware failure.

#6: Retailer of the product reports 9 of 12 sales were returned for various reasons, cites a common problem is a failure in the PSU due to a resistor.

#8: Board mutes for one to several seconds under certain conditions using Firewire.


Even if we throw out the worst negative and the best positive responses, statistically 4 out of 9 is a poor record. The nature of the problems is also somewhat troubling, especially issues that sound as if they won't/can't be fixed.


If a Behringer board did this stuff, I'm betting there would be a different response to questions about reliability. Stating that muting of sound doesn't consititute a failure may be accurate, but in my opinion isn't tolerable in a $2,000 16-channel product.


I've no dog in this hunt, and keep in mind that I am
questioning
the notion that this board is an upgrade.

 

 

Losing the effects was me. I got them back within minutes. Just a hiccup. Not during a gig or anything.

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Well the answer to your question is this board is a huge upgrade. You should try one.

 

 

Look at gonzobassman's post (the one I specifically quoted and replied to, questioning reliability). His words indicate that he values reliability. I've seen no indication of this variety of failures in Mixwizards. That's why I questioned it.

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Look at gonzobassman's post (the one I specifically quoted and replied to, questioning reliability). His words indicate that he values reliability. I've seen no indication of this variety of failures in Mixwizards. That's why I questioned it.

 

Well for someone with "no dog in the hunt" you're sure doing a lot of howling:;)

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It may be, but it may not be depending on where the user's priorities are.

 

 

Of course! There is no product that is perfect for evey user's priorities. It just seems that the harshest critics of the Studiolive are people who have not really used one much.

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