Bad time to buy an LS9-32?

[smalljoshua]

If the T112 system is within the budget range you are looking at then how about the new Vi1 pricing from soundcraft?

At £16.5k list pricing for the surface/digital stage rack deal, then you are realistically looking at around £12k for the package, which puts it in the T112 bracket.

I don't realistically think that a T112 is anywhere near the price bracket of a Vi1 if I'm honest. The last prices I've seen for the T112 with IDR48 are at least half the Vi1 list price there.

 

Josh

[dbuckley]

Although the x32 isn't for you, I suspect it is going to decimate the LS9 market, so you may be able to get one s/h for next to nothing in a few months.

[cedd]

Indeed! And that's one of the other reasons why I'm concerned about buying an LS9 at the minute new. I'd be gutted if I bought one now and then saw its' price get slashed next year.

 

In terms of Yamaha being the first, absolutely, but others have come along since and built upon what they did. It's why I think the CL5 is so important to Yamaha - it's their chance to come back and have another go after others have taken their great start and built upon it.

What I don't want to happen is in a few years the LS9 become the 02R of today - the last model.

 

I'd never really considered the Soundcraft consoles, though funnily enough will be sitting in alongside a Vi6 tonight, so whilst it's out of my price bracket, it'll be nice to see.

 

Discussion's kind of skipped around the Roland M480. It comes in at a slightly less daunting price (I'm contemplating selling a Kidney if anybody needs one....) and has some nice optional extras. I suspect it'll never be a rider friendly desk, but that really isn't a problem for me. Of more concern is the ability to hire a replacement if mine falls over - I don't think many hire companies stock them. What do people think of them? Do we think it'll remain a "current" console for long? How about service from Roland when it comes to repairs? Yamaha seem really good when it comes to after sales service, and Allen and Heath are at least local to our shores and have looked after queries I've had regarding my GL2400 well.

The forthcoming ipad app for the Roland (albeit needing an extra bit of hardware) is nice to see, and I'll be looking to get my hands on this at Plasa.

[Stuart91]

How about service from Roland when it comes to repairs?

 

We've had great service from Roland when needing repairs and replacement parts for their older VM consoles, which were discontinued over a decade ago. The fact that they still have many parts on hand for them, and staff who are familiar with the consoles, certainly impressed me.

 

Incidentally, apart from things like replacement knob caps, the only repair jobs that we have needed were due to accidental damage - a broken XLR input which needed repaired, and a replacement fader bank after a "helpful" client inadvertently dropped the console onto its face. The consoles themselves have been rock solid and from what I have seen of the newer models (we now own an M400) the build quality is equally good. I know of some M400s which have been worked relentlessly and are still going strong several years later.

 

You'd mentioned earlier about needing lots of faders. One option for the Rolands is to use a midi fader bank (Behringer make a cheap one that seems to do the trick) and use that to control DCAs or aux outputs, leaving the faders on the console free for input channels.

[dbuckley]

Indeed! And that's one of the other reasons why I'm concerned about buying an LS9 at the minute new. I'd be gutted if I bought one now and then saw its' price get slashed next year.

 

I think I'm more likely to get a flight to the moon than the LS9 marketplace not vanish without trace.

 

You need to have a fairly specific set of needs for the LS9 vs X32 comparison to come out in favour of the LS9. And that is before you look at the price tag.

[paulears]

I bought an early very expensive Yamaha digital mixer, second hand - came out of Kate Bush's studio. Within a few weeks I realised it was a bit of a dinosaur, so tried to sell it. No watchers on ebay at half what I paid, then 6 months later I tried again at 25% of what I paid, and had 1 watcher after a week. I took it into the theatre and tried to flog it to anyone who loved what it looked like in the dark - every control lit up in colours and the faders waggling. Still no joy. A year later it was in the skip!

 

The moral seems to be that digital second hand kit is too expensive for impulse buys, and moving so fast that buyers realise that waiting just a month can see more than one new products hit the market.

 

The Behringer X32 has been promoted for a long time now, so many purchasers have been hanging on. Once they're actually available everywhere, then the second hand market will collapse. People would be stupid to buy a product with no guarantee when they can get brand new, state of the art product with 3 year guarantee! The people expecting £1500 for a second hand 01/02/03 will find them unwanted, and the better quality Yamahas will suffer badly too. For those wanting to buy an LS9 - they should be able to snap one up for a small heap of cash. The LS9 will have to sell substantially cheaper than a new X32 to shift.

[timsabre]

They are now saying November for X32 availability. I presume the first batch was all pre-ordered and this is the 2nd batch. So there isn't going to be a glut of them for sale any time soon, the LS9's value may remain for a while yet.

[cedd]

Well I really enjoyed my time with the Vi6 on Monday. Sadly of course it's way out of budget, but a Vi1 isn't (especially as a local form might have one available). It's only 32 channels out of the box, but a stagebox at a later date would be an option. Clearly I'm paying a lot of money for a console that still has some of the drawbacks of the LS9 (only local I/O as standard) and it's a bit short on faders.

I've watched through all the instruction videos (as I have with all the consoles I've looked at) and one thing really struck me - it seems very noisy changing layers. The faders really seem to snap into place with a real click. Is that something others have noticed? Only 16 faders would mean lots of layer changes, and if that's going to prove distracting (especially as I'm normally pretty much sat in the audience) then it's a problem. A noisy desk with more faders would be less of a problem as, of course, I'd not have to change layer as much.

I do like the user interface though, and the channel ganging featue looks incredibly useful (I know others have got it, but it's much easier to get to on this) for large exits and entrances.

Got a few suppliers that I'm in touch with, most of whom will be at Plasa, so if you see somebody prodding lots of desks, it's probably me! I'm very interested to see the Roland iPad app at Plasa too.

 

Thanks all for the advice. I wasn't sure if I should start this thread or not, but it's really helped me work through my options and raised a few more questions too.

[brainwave-generator]

The LS9 will have to sell substantially cheaper than a new X32 to shift.

 

No it won't.

 

The LS9 will not be challenged by the X32, in either new or used state. Simply because, the LS9 is rider friendly and anything with Behringer written on it, isn't.

 

At the end of the day, the X32 will be yet another product from a small-er brand name that will make an excellent solution for venues, small production companies etc. But for anybody who is still involved in the rentals side and in major events, it's just not really acceptable to rock up running your system of a Behringer digital desk - but it IS acceptable to turn up and run it off a Yamaha digital desk. And that is why, whilst the X32 covers most of the LS9s bases, the 2 desks will be on fairly separate wavelengths and the price of one won't affect the other. They're just different things for different people.

 

You know - it's perfectly possible that KIA could create a luxury 4x4 with all the bells and whistles that you find in a Range Rover, plus a whole host more, and sell it for £30,000... and most of the people who wanted used Range Rovers will still buy used Range Rovers. There will be some people who did just want a big and comfortable 4x4 to take the kids and dog out, who will see it and think "oh yes that does everything I need, it's new, and it costs less". But to be honest most of the people will want a Range Rover because turning up to school to pick the kids up in a KIA just doesn't have quite the same impact as a Range Rover. And ultimately, the second hand Range Rover still does 99% of the things that the KIA does, and once you've had the KIA a month, it's a used car as well anyway. And once you'd had it for a year, you'd really wish you had a Range Rover not a KIA.

 

It happens across every market, people are brand name orientated, because it remains a fact that a lot of people - some of whom may be your clients - are still happy to judge a book by it's cover.

[TimmyP1955]

...... I need a fader per channel for at least all my radio mics. Simultaneous exits and entrances of characters just don't work across layers (I've tried it) and characters moving around the board scares me a lot. With a fader per character I know that my leading man and leading lady are always faders 1 and 2, working down in importance from there (which is fine until you get a board where you can't reach faders 1 and 2 and the DCA's or subs at the same time, then you've got to work backwards!).

 

Once you run out of channel faders, put each of the mics next in line on its own DCA.

 

Use scenes.

[paulears]

I understand BGs comment but I suspect that the bad history, really is bad history. It's a long time now since the old issues with Mackie in the US, and many sound people are now young enough to never have heard about it. All the press, including reviews from previous sceptics, 100% positive. Initial batches are pre-sold, so little chance of stock before mid/late October.

 

I've been noticing an increase in second hand Yamaha kit for sale, but they all want serious money so far, no bargains, just current good value for age.

 

The signs are that the product is going to hold some records for pre-availablility orders!

 

As for being rider friendly, only time will tell, but the market is not all just these types of events. The hire companies serving smaller bands, touring bands that do theatres and corporate, and individual venues will not worry about the history. Even I'm wondering if the time to go digital out front has arrived?

[BlueShift]

The LS9 will have to sell substantially cheaper than a new X32 to shift.

 

No it won't.

 

The LS9 will not be challenged by the X32, in either new or used state. Simply because, the LS9 is rider friendly and anything with Behringer written on it, isn't.

 

I'm just not sure this is true. Much like the M7, before the release of the CL. It started life as a very rider friendly 'cheap' 48 channel console. But as soon as the Profile and now Digico and A&H have established themselves in the market, you just don't see them nearly as much anymore, and quite frankly, anyone who buys one brand new is almost certainly making a bad decision. Especially now they could have a CL1/3/5...

 

I think this is the case with the LS9. There are just so many desks that are on-the-whole better these days. I totally understand the desire for faders, but ultimately, changing your workflow slightly is such a small price to pay for better sound quality, more features, more I/O, better resale value, etc...

 

You have:

- Midas Pro1/2

- Roland M480 (actually a great console)

- Digico SD11/9/8

- A&H iLive

- Vi1

- The X32

 

Although most of us dream of being able to own kit just because we like it, very few of us actually can, and at least have to partially consider business factors like resale-ability, rider friendliness, etc... And ultimately, I'm just not sure the LS9 fits that bill anymore

[Ben Lawrance]

The LS9 will not be challenged by the X32, in either new or used state. Simply because, the LS9 is rider friendly and anything with Behringer written on it, isn't.

 

I disagree........

 

The LS9 is far from rider friendly. In fact, most of the riders I see state "No small Yamaha Digital"

 

Behringer may not have been acceptable with their older products, but since Midas & KT have got involved I think that the product is actually very good, and people will put some trust into it.

 

Only time will tell, but I would hazzard a guess to say that all of the pre-ordered consoles have sold for a reason.

[brainwave-generator]

The LS9 will not be challenged by the X32, in either new or used state. Simply because, the LS9 is rider friendly and anything with Behringer written on it, isn't.

 

I disagree........

 

The LS9 is far from rider friendly. In fact, most of the riders I see state "No small Yamaha Digital"

 

 

Far from rider friendly? It's only far from rider friendly where people want a big desk (hence why they say no SMALL yamaha digital). But if people want a big desk they won't want an X32 either.

 

In the kind of rider that wants a small desk, LS9 is what people ask for. I don't see Behringer changing that.

 

Like I said, it's not that the X32 won't sell, it has it's market and it will sell within it's market. But it won't challenge the LS9s market because they're thoroughly different.

 

 

[paulears]

In the past week, we've had 4 LS9s coming through - and all of them are thinking of replacing them before their investment takes a dive.