Allen & Heath 9 XB-14 User Guide
INTRODUCTION TO THE XB-14
The following is a technical overview of XB-14, if you want to, please skip to the next sec-
tion.
The Allen & Heath XB-14 mixer has been carefully and lovingly designed in the beautiful county of Cornwall in the UK and is manufactured
alongside a wide range of professional audio mixing consoles. Many of the components used in the XB-14 are exactly the same as in the
larger Allen & Heath products and the construction methods are also very similar — utilising individual vertically mounted channel circuit
boards with each rotary control fixed with a metal nut to the front panel. This provides a very robust product that will resist damage and
give years of reliable use. It also makes servicing much easier should it be required, with the ability to remove one particular channel from
the mixer at a time, or easily change a fader.
The audio circuitry is based on years of continual development and refinement , the performance of all the elements within the mixer scruti-
nised and perfected to ensure the very best sound quality possible.
Multi-application:
The XB-14 is great for a range of applications from small radio or internet broadcast studios, or for larger studios with multiple rooms, for
hospital radio, university radio and community radio broadcast applications. The XB-14 has a wealth of features specifically designed for
broadcasters, things like telephone communication modules for telephone callers, mic fader start sensing for external connection and internal
automatic muting of the speaker outputs, stereo channel start/cue outputs for CD deck transport control, separate headphones mix & out-
puts for guests, an audition bus…. The list goes on!
Mic/Line Pre-amps:
The XB-14 pre-amps use a two stage design, with carefully controlled amounts of gain in each stage. When amplifying the signal from the
XLR input, the gain range is huge (69dB of range to be exact) and is very evenly distributed around the gain control, meaning better control
of signal level. Most of the gain comes from the first stage, so unwanted noise is kept to a minimum. There is no “pad” switch, or pad circuit
— line level signals are simply plugged into the second stage of the pre-amp by using the line input jack socket. This has the great advantage
of lower noise when using the line input. (It is common to attenuate line level signals, then amplify them back up again which can give more
noise or hiss).
EQ:
The XB-14 is equipped with a 3-band equaliser circuit on each mono input and a 2-band EQ on the Telco & stereo channels. The frequency
and response of each has been carefully chosen to give the maximum performance when using the EQ on a variety of sources.
AUX bus:
XB-14 has a single Auxiliary bus that can be used for external processing, effects, recording or auditioning.
MIX B:
A separate stereo mix bus is provided for recording an independent mix to the main program mix, or creating a clean feed source with se-
lected channels.
Remote Control:
The mono mic/line channels have fader start logic switching enabling them to control external equipment or automatically mute the speaker
outputs to prevent acoustic feedback in localised or self-operated applications. The stereo channels have start & cue logic outputs available
to hook up to external equipment like CD players. There are also options to mute the mono inputs remotely using an external “cough”
switch or similar.
USB:
Getting audio to and from a computer easily is now a common requirement for sound and music production and broadcast applications. The
way we have implemented this on XB-14 is super-flexible and super-easy! No longer do you need to fiddle around the back of your com-
puter to get to the soundcard inputs, only to find that the levels are all wrong and noisy. Just plug in a USB lead to your XB-14, select the
USB routing on the mixer and the device on your computer and that’s it! Quality audio to and from your PC or MAC.
Self operation or Producer operated:
Whether you need a mixer for a self operated broadcast situation, or whether you have a separate studio and engineer, the XB-14 has the
features to fit. Separate monitor mixes can be created for operator and guests or presenter so the engineer can check levels and cue sources
while the presenter or guest can listen to a different source. The engineer/producer can communicate to the guest or presenter using the
Talk feature, as well as off-air communication to telephone callers.
There is also the facility for remote control of channel mutes from the studio using the remote interface connectors, ideal for studio situated
mute switches.
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