Presonus AR Series Mixers

[DavidDever]

Picked one of these up yesterday from Sweetwater to replace a few older, clunkier items I had kicking around: https://www.presonus.com/products/StudioLive-AR12-USB



Here's the rub:

• 16" wide, so fits next to a Pro-2 on a 48" wide A-frame stand!
• quiet, all-analogue signal path (no intermediate conversion to digital) with zero latency
• 14-input / 4-output 24 bit / 96 kHz USB audio interface
• built-in 24-bit / 44.1 kHz SD card recorder, for those times when you don't want to deal with a computer
• decent-sounding built-in reverb/delay effects processor
• Bluetooth 4.1 input (which I have not yet figured out a use case for)

I'm sure I'm missing something, but this eliminates two different aging, input-constrained FireWire audio interfaces with unsupported drivers, an older Mackie analog mixer (whose sound quality it soundly trounces), an older Behringer digital mixer with built-in effects, etc. in one fell swoop, and it's gig-friendly.

Oh–and by the way–did I say that it sounds really good (better than the Presonus digital equivalents, IMHO) and is quiet?

[BobTheDog]

Nice.

The Presonus mixers look pretty good. It's amazing what you get for the price.

I'm interested in how you get one with it.

[Jan Schultink]

Interesting let us know how it works in use. The features look great. There are some first reviews of people complaining about build quality and background noise, but these could be competitors-in-disguise (you say it is very quiet for example).

[DavidDever]

Both the mono as well as the stereo channels are perfectly quiet, as far as line-level gain staging goes–it was, in fact, the first thing I checked once I turned on the unit. I have not checked the mic-level inputs; the instrument inputs seemed perfectly fine (and these pass through the same mic preamp).

Regarding the build quality, the PCB-mounted potentiometers used by Presonus do not feature a threaded surround (as do the Mackie units, used to secure each pot to the front panel). That said–having taken my original 1202 VLZ apart many times, I can't say I'd miss 'em, especially on a $499 street price unit with the bells and whistles that the AR12 has–nor do they prevent shearing of a potentiometer shaft off the pot itself, which has happened a few times with the Mackie.