Hey guys,
Thought I'd chime in as I recently put a Zen through its paces at my studio.
I currently have a Toft ATB32, which while I love, doesn't really fit my work flow as I need a console primarily for tracking and monitoring, then stem mixing 10-14 channels. I'm mainly using 16 channels of the Toft at a time, and the others are sitting gathering dust.
Garry Robson from SCV London was kind enough to bring a fully loaded (MicPre+Moving fader) Zen to me for demoing last Friday, and here are my thoughts on the critical elements for me. I am no expert reviewer, so please ask me questions if I've missed anything out.
(For the record, I am not currently affiliated with Audient, or SCV so this is a true user review)
First of all, The Zen looks much nicer and bigger in the flesh. One of concerns that my studio wouldn't look as 'credible' to untrained eyes with the Zen, but it really is a nice size and looked fantastic in place. While the knobs are fairly close together, I had no trouble easily changing things without knocking anything else. The angle of the Zen makes it so much more ergonomic, as everything can be reached and viewed accurately without standing up. I like the idea of that a lot as a guy who likes his seat!
As its got an internal fan-less power supply, powering up is simply plugging in a mains lead and flicking a switch. I found the switch is in a bit of an awkward place, as once the console is seated in furniture, it'll be pretty hard to reach, but obviously this is no show stopper.
The feel of the Zen as others have mentioned is absolutely stellar. Every knob and button feels solid and precise and the overall quality of construction is as good as any large format console I've worked on. The channel faders are so smooth and have just the right amount of resistance as not to feel either flimsy or sticky. The buss faders feel slightly lighter (I guess down to the fact there not motorised), but again feel smooth. I really appreciated the fact the master fader had no gain in hand, as I like to set it 0 and be done. The mute/solo/SIP buttons feel fantastic, and are well illuminated to see exactly what is going on.
I patched in my monitors and ran a handful of channels from my converters to the Zen and started to play. The first thing I as floored with is just how quite this thing is. My Control room is measured at NR10, so any signal noise on the monitoring chain is quite easily noticed. With all channels routed the the stereo buss, all faders at 0 and the monitor knob on full (which would be painfully loud; most of the time I had it at about 11oclock!) there was nothing. I mean no noise what so ever. It is easily the quietest console I've ever heard., and I as told that was due to not only the quality of the circuitry, but the oversized earthing inside. Kudos to Audient, this really blew me away! Sound reproduction was perfect to my ears, and I found the Zen to be very neutral at passing audio through.
I played with all the routing, bussing and cues etc and every worked as advertised. I found the Zen to be pretty easy to work on as each channel is very logically laid out. The only thing that took a few moments to get my head around was the direct out switch matrix, but after 30 seconds of reading up, this feature is most definitely welcomed! I loved the SIP feature, and appreciated the fact I could change the type of solo from the main panel without standing.
I ran some drum channels through the desk and engaged the buss comp on the master buss. I liked what I heard instantly! Its in the same ballpark as an SSL buss comp, but ever so slightly more coloured to my ears. The great thing is, you can really pull the charm out of the comp by smashing the mix, then blend it back in to the dry signal with the parallel knob. A very cool feature indeed, and Garry and I enjoyed what the comp was doing to the snare and tom decays when parallel compressing, without really affecting the initial transients of the drums. All of the buttons are silent switching too, so I didn't hear any “clicking” through my monitors when engaging something or soloing etc.
Overall, I was completely floored by the Zen. It had so many little touches that I've always wanted, yet none of the things I personally never use like tons of aux sends. I will no doubt miss a console EQ, but this gives me an excuse to build up a small selection of quality 500 series EQs, and make everyone of them work to its maximum potential.
I hope the Zen will be a permanent fixture at my place in the next month, I certainly didn't like seeing it leaving!
Oz