Presonus StudioLive 16.0.2 16-Channel Audio Mixer

I really do love this board!Here are some of my favorite Highlights..The Preamps have a ton of Headroom and sound great!The Fat Channel options are absolutely amazing.It really is like having two whole racks of effects. I even use the presets and they sound great!not every board has the option to invert the polarity of your signal.3 Bands of EQ are plenty especially when you can set the frequency that you want to adjust..A versatile compressor with a useable Gate!! Nice!!Adjustable low pass frequency on every channel!The Ability to save channel presets!The 31 band EQ on the Main outputs is a very nice feature.The internal effects are very good.4 Auxiliary channels withe possibility of remote control with Ipads and Ipods is a fantastic option! It is like having 4 personal monitor mixers.The Control Software has the Spectrum Analyzer and is extremely handy when trying to pinpoint problem frequencies while performing.It has flexible setup options,, Channels 9 - 16 can either be configured as 4 stereo channels or 4 Mono Mic channels ( effectively making it a 12 channel Mic Mixer).Is Very compact!Here are some things that you may consider negatives.Only 24bit 48Khz A/D conversion (though fine for me.. It is lower than most of today's standards).Though I still feel that this board is a good price at it's 1299 price, I feel that the 16.4.2 is an even better buy at $1999. It has way more options (including 31 band eq's on all outputs).No Sub mixesNo physical insert on each channel.. (This was my biggest concern but have to admit, really don't have a problem because the Fat Channel gives me all that I need anyway).Takes a little getting used to for a person who runs an Analog board. It can be a little confusing starting out.. If you learn to appreciate the compactness and options that it offers, you will learn to accept "Scrolling through menus" and "Selecting Channels" to have your options. For those who are concerned with controls, setting up with laptop really opens doors and unlocks the potential of this unit..I have been looking at these boards for months but just couldn't justify the cost of the 16.4.2. I have a friend who has one and it is fantastic.. However, the 16.4.2 is much bigger.. The 16.0.2 has everything I need for my purposes.. My initial concerns were the 24/48 A/D conversion not being good enough for recording and the fact that they board does not have inserts on each channel. I can safely say though that 24bit 48 Khz is proving to be absolutely adequate for my recording needs and I am actually rather pleased that the Fat Channel features allow me to operate without needing to have inserts on each channel. Quite honestly, I end up being pleased that I don't have to bring a rack of effects to get the sound that I want..I also managed to pick this up on Black Friday.. They sold them at around $1000 for a week and this certainly inspired me to buy.. I haven't regretted it since! Now that I own it, I would gladly pay 1299 for it..

A little background: I own a medium sized production company and bought this board expressly to use in a live environment. I have not tested any of the recording based features not have I used any of the included software. I use it for my compact setup. It does that job well. My biggest complaint is the way it connects to my iPad. This mixer had no direct network connection. Instead, you have to use FireWire to an attached computer. From there you can connect to a network and to your iPad. I knew this going in, but not having network on a digital board seems a bit antiquated. Another thing to note, this board only has three band eq, not four. This is a bit problematic for me at times, but not a huge issue. Overall, this is a great board for small events! Presonus does a great job of getting away with not needing moving faders.

Mine had an intermittent noise problem and I didn't realize that it was the mixer until right after the warranty expired, company wants two hundred dollar bench fee plus shipping both ways which brings it close to $300 to repair. I'm still weighing if I should repair or just scrap it and move to a better product. Also be careful where you set this mixer on a table since the rough metal underneath will scratch the heck out of anything you set it on. I would not buy again.

Just got this a couple weeks ago. Only had one day since to hook it up and try it out. Only took about 30 minutes from box open to recording. I've had quite a few years experience with interfaces so that probably helped, but overall very easy to get going. The most time was spent downloading and installing the software which was very easy. Opened Universal Control and Capture Software and started recording with no issues. Definitely read the manual before you do anything (which is what I did) it will save you a lot of time. So far this thing is awesome. I will not update this unless I have issues. So no updates no problems.

Do not buy this board, period. It has given my engineering team nothing but trouble since day one, and literally just blew up on us. It had constant connectivity issues, dropping firewire connection with the Mac every single day, sometimes in the middle of sessions with clients waiting. I thought maybe it was a Firewire issue. Nope, I tried Thunderbolt instead and the same issue occurred. I thought maybe it was a computer issue. Nope, our new board (The Qu-24) works perfectly and does everything we expected this console to do on the same computer. The basic connectivity problems rendered it practically unusable.The 16.0.2 has infuriatingly little flexibility in its routing and signal flow options. You cannot route the firewire signal to be post-fader, which makes it impossible to live mix your recordings. Instead of coming right out and informing you, all the materials are cleverly worded to make you think it can do way more than it actually can.The interface is awful. I understand it has a very compact footprint, but you end up pressing tons of scattered buttons and knobs everywhere just to do one simple thing. Even then, it's confusing and basic functions require a total mental download of the manual. I wouldn't give the interface ONE star, it is usable in some respects, but it is just not how any engineer should work.The preamps did not sound good at all. And the headphone monitor really sounded obnoxiously bad. Cold, digital, harsh sound.All in all, horrible experience and I really warn anyone away from this board. The price point and footprint are very alluring, but it's not worth it. There are much better options out there now, like the Qu series and others.