Best mixer for the money

This board is everything I was looking for in a mixer. Each channel has it's own phantom power as well as a PAD. This lets you actually use each channel for 2 separate inputs. Built in effects work great and 6 aux channels to work with. Also other features that you will just have to find out when you purchase this awesome board. The channel faders have plenty of smooth travel and this board looks great overall. No need to buy rack mounting rails as with other boards... Just take off the side plates and the rails are built in!
My most impressive thing to note is the high mid and low mid EQ sweeps. Most boards don't have this and it really lets you tweak the sound to exactly what you need.
My only problem is I wished that the light would have been included

MixWizard 3

I just purchased the MixWizard 3 after owning the original MixWizard for 9 years and I love it. Doing approximately 125 shows a year with the last one and now mixing with this one, the new features are great! It is truely a workhorse! Rock solid performance! The new effects are awesome, crystal clear.

Another great product!

Why own anything else

I bought mine about 3 years ago based mostly on the reputation of Allen Heath. I have several friends that use the Mackie Onxy and most have had issue with Mackie board. I use the MW3 mixer about six times per month for my seven-piece band. I have never had a single problem with this mixer. Extremely reliable and extremely flexible with all of the aux sends, EQ ability on each channel, mono out that you can use with the Aux 6 for subs. Absolutely love it. Well worth the money.

Rocks for a pre amp and daw controller!!

Just one more thing ya'll should know bout this board. It's fully customizable if you take off the back panel. You have switches inside for every channel. I switched all my channels to make the direct outs post fader. My direct outs go right to my a/d/a converters which firewire to my daw software. So when you move the faders for studio application you directly control record input on the screen. Sound and flexibility make this board awesome!!

and yet another use for my MixWizard

Okay, I made a review before, but I have another use I just figured out for the board...

Now I am sure everyone else besides me already figured this out...I am using it now for tracking an entire band as the headphone mixes. I can make four stereo mixes (three for the six aux sends and one from the stereo bus) and then send each out to the inserts on my headphone amp. I drop the click track from the DAW into one of the channels. Each of the musicians in a four-piece band get their own zero-latency headphone mix. I wish I would have thought of this sooner. I love the various inputs and outputs this board has. What a great tool for live mix and tracking.

Worth every penny

I've been using a non-VLZ Mackie SR24-4 religiously for my gigs ever since the board came out about 14 yrs ago. I bought the A&H MixWizard3 16:2 board brand new late last year because I wanted a versatile small format mixer with built-in effects. The MW3 has been sitting in my shop until yesterday when I finally got to open and use it for a church festival. I hooked it up to my Yorkville PA, punched the line in buttons, turned on the MP3 player for sound check, and I quickly noticed a different sound coming from my PA that I hadn't heard. Deeper and tighter low end, clearer and brighter (but not shrilling) top end, and it just sounded better than I've heard in the past. I also noticed that a Shure SM-58 sounded so much better on the MW3 vs. the Mackie. I quickly and easily navigated through the onboard FX and found that the concert hall patch worked well for the festival. This board is worth every penny because it has the features you want, it sounds awesome, you don't need to open the user manual, and especially because it can survive being in direct Texas sunlight for 8 hours on a 93 degree day in September. Get one now and prepare to be amazed.

Even more reasons to buy this mixer...

There are a lot of compelling reasons to buy the Allen & Heath MixWizard 16:2 (or 14 or 12 versions)--lots of very high quality inputs with beautiful e.q., more aux sends than most compact mixers, the fact that this consol will fit snuggly into a pop-up rack, the pro orientation of the layout and operation, and the amazing price-point--these are all great reasons to buy an Allen & Heath mixer, and this would be enough---But one more thing pretty much EVERYONE overlooks with the Allen & Heath mixers is the simple fact that they are boards you can use for life--what I mean is, the Allen & Heath mixers use individual circuit boards for each channel. If a channel fails, you can actually get these things fixed. Pretty much all the other boards at this price point have one giant circuit board that flexes and bends over time and the solder joints will fail. No one wants to fix those other boards for you. If they will work on a Mackie or Yamaha or so on, it will cost a lot of $$$ ---close to the same price as buying a whole new board. Not so with the Allen & Heath. The circuit board arrangement is more rigid to begin with and in the event that anything does ever fail, you can get them fixed, no problem. So one more substantial reason to buy the Allen & Heath. Great board exceeding the usefulness of many larger and more expensive options.

The silver bullet mixer for small format!

Man...Finally! I have gone through a lot of mixers these last couple years trying to find a mixer that had "that live sound sound". I have gone through Midas Venice (bland, opaque, in your face), Onyx (grainy, onfucused, vintage?), VLZ (flat. not bad), Yamaha( shrill), and now A&H. A&H is by far the best mixer for live sound, although the Onyx is also a pretty nice board (Loved the firewire card). Actually, the Onyx had been my favorite mixer until I bought this board. My beef with the Onyx is the EQ and the unfocused, grainy, highs, or lack of ( Before the A&H, as most, confused this with warmth) . The Onyx EQ was more like an effect than an actual tool. The EQ is where the A&H really shines. It actually boost and cuts frequencies without adding or subtracting color. Since the highs are so smooth and focused with the A&H, I really find no need to really boost the top. Where I find myself boosting quiet a bit is in the lows. WOW! It was so pleasant to hear how tight and punchy the bass notes got when I boosted. I was not that impressed at first listen with the pre's. I guess I had been expecting some kind of colored sound, but after fiddling with the gain and levels, I was somewhat impressed with the even harmonics. Where I found more respect for the pre's was when I added verb/effects. This discovery helped me understand why the pre's were designed to sound the way they do (Tighter lows, low-mids, focused top). Everthing sat better in the mix. No source lost from low-end muck. The verb just shined and not overstated. I even found myself using more since it sounded so clean. Save yourself time and hassle if your in the small format market. There is nothing better in this price range the the MixWiz3.

Incredible

I'm a 16 year old guy that has used a few different Allen & Heath Consoles and I recently installed a new sound system for my church. We purchased the MixWizard3 and after using this a number of times, I can say that this is one amazing board. The EQ is amazing. It provides amazing clarity and much detail to the Low Ends. I took a Taylor 510 and put it through an L.R. Baggs Para DI and went directly into the board and the sound quality was surpurb. At least once or twice a week I send my Martin 000C-16RGTE directly through the board and the results are amazing. The clarity in the high's, the attention to the mid's and the detail in the lows makes one amazing buy. I was pleasently surprised.

I met the Wizard:

I have had the MixWizard for almost a year now and have had nothing but compliments on the sound of our band. Sounds professional with crisp highs and tight lows. I strongly recommend it to any band wanting to improve their sound. For the price, there's nothing better that I've found.

Spot On

All I can say is, yes, I absolutely concur with everything the individual above me stated. He nailed it perfectly. Something else worth noting is this board's fantastic use as a front-end for your project studio's DAW.

I have Trident, Avalon, & Focusrite preamps/compressors. Not to mention my beloved Presonus ADL600, a gorgeous, silky, all-tube stereo tube preamp designed for Presonus by the audio genius, Anthony Demaria. Plus I have numerous other pieces of front end gear-for both effects and dynamics. And ALL of it runs through the MixWizard. It's my studio's nerve center.

The MW offers enough great sounding preamps along with plenty of that colorful British EQ we all know & love, that if you run out of your boutique inputs, just use the pres built into the board—you won't be disappointed. I promise.

Superior for Live sound

I work as a live sound engineer and have had many troubles over the years with mid-size mixers. From not enough AUX outs to not enough In's, it has been quite frustrating until we picked up two of THESE!!

With 16 mic inputs, 6 aux outs, built in effects, insert points, CD ins - This mixer has solved all of our issues in 16 channel mixing settings. We not longer have the limitations we once had and can now give performers exactly what they want. With two of these mixers around we can give the same quality setup to multiple performing groups.

Best mixer for its size and price

I love all the ins and outs. If theres one thing not to scrip on, its the mixer you use. Allen and heath has proven to me that they make only professional grade gear, I am now becoming a sound engineer and found that this is beter than most of the suff I will be learning on. Upon recieving this mixer I had insured my disicion of career and had uptained a divice that I can integrate it into any of my future system configurations, wheather that be in the studio Recording/Playingback/Editing or Live profomance with the ability to record through the direct outs on every channel.

Extremely very well thought out console!

This board has everything that you could want for the price. Solidly built, many possible routing possiblities, and a very accurate EQ section.

Great Sound!

You can't find a better mixer period for this money. Using this for live sound has been a really nice experience.

Awesome board

Doesn't get much better than this for $1000 great pre's direct outs 6 aux sends mulitple stereo outputs I use for tracking and mixing the mic pres are great and the i also use it for analog summing for protools the 2 mix bus sounds great not to mention the 4 band eq that has sweepable mids. A great mixer for a small studio or small venue.