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The ZED-10FX is built to last.

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UK-based Allen & Heath has a proud pedigree as builders of high-quality mixing consoles, with products aimed at both top-flight studios and venues requiring front-of-house live sound control.

The subject of this review is the ZED-10FX console, which boasts USB audio connectivity and an onboard FX suite to complement its capabilities as a studio router and compact live sound console.

Crucially, the design matches A&H's larger format mixers, with individually-mounted circuits for each stage, rather than one flat panel, which yields a rugged, tough construction that will suit studio and live sound applications alike.

In detail

The ZED-10FX's top panel provides all the physical inputs and controls, with just the power inlet and on/off button housed at the back. The first four channels are mono, with the first two intended for mic or line sources and channels three and four set up for mic or guitar/Hi-Z instrument sources.

All four channels feature gain and level controls, a high-pass filter with a slope at 100Hz, flexible and open-sounding three-band EQ with sweepable mid-range between 120Hz and 4kHz, sends to the auxiliary and onboard FX buss, a solo button and an extra button to route the signal to a 'record' buss, which is a bonus output allowing you to record a live show, for example.

There's a global 48V phantom power supply for the four mic pres which give a warm and open, transparent sound. There are then two stereo source inputs with shorter channel strips - there's no mid EQ or high-pass filter on these channels but that makes sense in the context for which they're intended.

These stereo inputs are flexible though, as well as the expected 1/4-inch jack inputs, RCA phono inputs are offered on the first pair, while the second stereo input can receive an additional 'Playback' stereo signal or, by default, route the USB audio input into the mixer at this stage.

Despite the compact nature of the console, its potential flexibility is impressive – particularly in a live context. One obvious configuration would be to use two microphone channels for vocals, lead and bass guitar on inputs three and four, with keyboards or a laptop on the first stereo pair. The auxiliary buss could provide monitoring, while the effects could be tweaked for the venue and either be sent to the performers on stage or not, as desired.

The gig could be captured via the Record buss and the live engineer could toggle easily between monitoring what's heard by performers on stage or checking the Main mix feed. If you were feeling brave, you could even set AmpliTube up on a laptop and tweak settings in real time for the lead guitarist via the USB connector port!