Front of house and monitor desks from Allen & Heath’s digital console range, spanning the Qu and CQ compact series, the 96kHz SQ family including the Plus models with RackUltra FX, and the flagship Avantis. Everything here is a self-contained console with onboard processing, as opposed to the surface-plus-MixRack architecture used by dLive.

Channel count headlines the spec sheet, but expandability matters more in practice. The SQ series takes DX and SLink stage boxes, so a compact SQ-5 can grow into a large stage-box driven rig without changing desk, while the QU-5D builds in a 16×16 Dante interface for networked rooms. Avantis tops the range with dual full HD touchscreens and the deepest processing in this section. Check the I/O port and option card slot before buying, since adding networking later is routine on SQ and Avantis, and the Plus variants ship with upgraded FX processing from the factory. If the desk needs to rack mount or double as a stage box, look at the SQ-Rack and the CQ models under Portable Mixers.

Console, stage box and option card choices interlock, so spec the whole signal path in one pass rather than discovering a port mismatch at the first gig.