Allen & Heath 11 ZED-4 BUS User Guide
INTRODUCTION TO THE ZED-4 BUS MIXERS
A Technica Overview:
The Allen & Heath ZED-4 mixer has been care ully and lovingly designed in the beauti ul county o Cornwall in the UK and is
manu actured alongside a wide range o pro essional audio mixing consoles. Many o the components used in ZED are exactly
the same as in the larger Allen & Heath products and the construction methods are also very similar — utilising individual ver-
tically mounted channel circuit boards with each rotary control ixed with a metal nut to the ront panel. This provides a very
robust product that will resist damage and give years o reliable use. It also makes servicing much easier should it be required,
with the ability to remove one particular channel rom the mixer at a time, or easily change a ader.
The audio circuitry is based on years o continual development and re inement, the per ormance o all the elements within the
mixer scrutinised and per ected to ensure the very best sound quality possible.
Mic/Line Pre-amps:
Based on the pre-amps rom the PA series, the ZED series pre-amps use a two stage design, with care ully controlled amounts
o gain in each stage. When ampli ying the signal rom the XLR input, the gain range is huge — 69dB o range to be exact —
and is very evenly distributed around the gain control, meaning better control o signal level. Most o the gain comes rom the
irst 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 o the pre-amp by using the line input jack socket. This has the great advantage o lower noise
when using the line input. (It is common to attenuate line level signals, the ampli y them back up again which can give more
noise or hiss).
EQ:
The ZED-4 series mixers are equipped with a 4-band equaliser circuit on each input, based closely on the acclaimed GL2400
EQ. The requency and response o each has been care ully chosen to give the maximum per ormance when using the EQ on a
variety o sources.
AUX system:
Six auxiliary sends are provided, two pre- ade, two post ade, and two switched pre or post ade. The Aux master level con-
trols are grouped nicely together in the master section and have AFL (a ter ade listen) switches or monitoring.
Groups:
The our sub-groups can be used or easy control o groups o inputs, or or applying signal processing such as compression to
groups o signals using the Group Insert connector. The groups have individual outputs and can also be sub-mixed to the main
L-R and Mono mixes.
Main Mix:
In addition to the main L-R stereo bus, there is a Mono bus which can be routed to individually, ideal or eeding low requency
speaker systems, or creating a mono PA mix.
Mono and Stereo Channe s:
The ZED-420, 428 and 436 models have a ull complement o 16, 24 and 32 mono inputs respectively, plus two stereo chan-
nels, maximising the number o inputs you get. The Stereo channels are dual, so you can get 4 stereo inputs to mix be ore you
need to use any mono channels.
USB:
Getting audio to and rom a computer easily is now a common requirement or live sound and music production. The way we
have implemented this on ZED is super- lexible and super-easy! No longer do you need to iddle around the back o your PC
to get to the soundcard inputs, only to ind that the levels are all wrong and noisy. Just plug in a USB lead to your ZED, select
the USB routing on the mixer and the device on your computer and that’s it! Quality audio to and rom your PC or MAC.
As you can te , we’re very proud of this product we hope you ike it too!