PreSonus Announce EarMix 16M AVB-Networked Personal Monitor Mixer
We always welcome new AoIP products and while there have been countless Dante products released over the last couple of years, whereas developments in the area of AVB have been rather slower. However there are some significant players in the AVB ecosystem, Avid, MOTU and Presonus being particularly relevant to our community. One thing about this release which caught our attention was the first sentence of the paragraph below about compatibility with other AVB systems, an area where AVB doesn't have the same guaranteed compatibility as some alternative AoIP solutions.
EarMix 16M
Designed to work seamlessly with the PreSonus StudioLive Series III family of mixers, yet compatible with other AVB-enabled systems, the PreSonus EarMix 16M 16x2 AVB-networked personal monitor mixer provides a high-quality, expandable, networked monitoring solution for stage, installed sound systems, and studio recording. Part of PreSonus’ fast-growing ecosystem of AVB-networked products, each EarMix 16M accepts 16 mono channels of input via AVB networking—and you can network multiple units with a StudioLive Series III mixer.
EarMix 16M features a loud, clear headphone amplifier that can drive low-impedance devices such as professional-calibre in-ear-monitors. Channel grouping and stereo channel linking let you create custom mixes for each musician, and you can apply limiting and three-band EQ with sweepable midrange frequency to each channel, as well as to the main mix. Once you’ve perfected a set of monitor mixes, save the whole scene to internal memory; you can store and recall up to 16 mix scenes locally.
The EarMix 16M can be powered with its included external power supply but in many cases—such as when it’s difficult to provide power across multiple onstage locations—it’s better to use Power over Ethernet (PoE), which enables network cables to carry electrical power to compatible devices.
Multiple Devices
A pair of AVB jacks enable you to chain multiple EarMix 16Ms while also connecting to a StudioLive Series III mixer. You can expand even further by chaining EarMix 16Ms from multiple PreSonus SW5E AVB switches. Once you’ve created your AVB network, setting up EarMix 16M routings from a networked StudioLive Series III console or using free PreSonus UC Surface control software for Mac, Windows, iPad, and Android is fast and easy.
EarMix 16M is expected to be available in the first quarter of 2018, with an anticipated street price of $399.95