PreSonus, anybody else fighting with these boards?

[Salicete]

I just received my second PreSonus board in two weeks that arrived factory-fresh, and defective.


The first had an inoperable AUX output, and the second has a defective USB port and zero output, period.


Really?


I know these boards are only "ProSumer," targeted at average consumers and not professionals, but one would expect a bit better. They are Chinese made now, as are many things these days, but they clearly have issues with QC.


I really should have researched them a bit more before I bought, as there are piles of horror stories on the Internet about freezes, bricking, broken outputs, WiFi malfunctions, software issues etc., etc., etc. My bad for not doing the proper groundwork.


Fortunately, I bought from a retailer with a great return policy, so back the second one goes.


I think I'll buy a higher end analog board and just be done with it.


The "brick" in question...

 

[ZenG]

Don't know about the board but I like your studio..

 

[Salicete]

Don't know about the board but I like your studio..

It is a glorified basement, but thanks!

 

[seamonkey]

Surprising
I don't own one but everyone I've seen has been solid.
Sometimes when I buy complicated gear, I ask the music store to set it all up and check it. Sweetwater will do this for you. They check stuff that sometimes I don't think of.

 

[ZenG]

I just received my second PreSonus board in two weeks that arrived factory-fresh, and defective.


The first had an inoperable AUX output, and the second has a defective USB port and zero output, period.


Really?


I know these boards are only "ProSumer," targeted at average consumers and not professionals, but one would expect a bit better. They are Chinese made now, as are many things these days, but they clearly have issues with QC.


I really should have researched them a bit more before I bought, as there are piles of horror stories on the Internet about freezes, bricking, broken outputs, WiFi malfunctions, software issues etc., etc., etc. My bad for not doing the proper groundwork.


Fortunately, I bought from a retailer with a great return policy, so back the second one goes.


I think I'll buy a higher end analog board and just be done with it.


The "brick" in question...

"there are piles of horror stories in the internet"...

I know what you mean. If I go on Amazon and look at product reviews, it's pretty easy to tell where the weaknesses are when dozens of people report a similar problem.

You get one guy that says a product is very good ( probably written by a paid reviewer)..and then the next ten/ twenty after that say the product is unreliable etc etc etc.

That's usually a big factor when I make a choice, personally.

 

[Salicete]

Dead USB port.

With all the hoops this board is supposed to be able to jump through, with all the sophisticated software and electronics, they botch a USB port?

~Cheap, Chinese-Made Junk~

Sorry, that is my experience with these boards, and not just one of them. Perhaps older ones, and likely the long gone USA made versions were of higher quality, but this iteration is of very poor quality.

Back it has gone, never to darken my doorstep again.

 

[Ulf_Hansson]

While I have had issues with our Presonus boards, they have been more about usage (the way some of the features are implemented and mapped to available controls are sometimes quite confusing). But I have nothing to complain about regarding sound, build quality or stuff not working. Apart from the Studiolive 24.4.2 we had, I have been working with at least three others (rentals or fixed installations) with varying configurations. All perfectly fine.

As for being built in China, and that being the reason for poor Q... Well, good luck trying to find anything that is not built in China! Do you have Q problems with the iPhone in you pocket as well?

 

[Salicete]

While I have had issues with our Presonus boards, they have been more about usage (the way some of the features are implemented and mapped to available controls are sometimes quite confusing). But I have nothing to complain about regarding sound, build quality or stuff not working. Apart from the Studiolive 24.4.2 we had, I have been working with at least three others (rentals or fixed installations) with varying configurations. All perfectly fine.

As for being built in China, and that being the reason for poor Q... Well, good luck trying to find anything that is not built in China! Do you have Q problems with the iPhone in you pocket as well?

I can't argue with anything you say, and I am posting my direct experience with PreSonus gear, and in particular the two boards I received within a 3-week period that had simple parts of their systems just plain broken form the factory. Not everything created in China is created equally, and these newer boards (or at least this batch) are, in my experience, cheap Chinese-made junk. This particular batch of “Cheap Chinese-Made Junk" is just a subset of the things made in China, many of which are of high quality, but not everything.



I might add that I called PreSonus for technical support, and waited 30 or so minutes before hanging up and submitting a support ticket, hoping for a timely reply that way. It took a week for them to reply, and their answer was, basically, "does your USB stick light up when you put it in?"



FYI- It did not, and that was among the first things I checked, even before contacting support, when I noted there was an issue with the port.



At any rate, I'm sure there are many happy PreSonus owners out there, I'm just not one of them.

 

[BusyFingers]

That sucks. I was wondering about a powered board with onboard effects. In consideration of how small they can make poweramps these days, are there any decent, small (6 channel) powered boards with effects built in?

 

[seamonkey]

I might add that I called PreSonus for technical support, and waited 30 or so minutes before hanging up and submitting a support ticket, hoping for a timely reply that way. It took a week for them to reply, and their answer was, basically, "does your USB stick light up when you put it in?"

That's bad. Really bad. There are plenty of companies manufacturing in China that actually do have good support response in the rest of the world. It's not a China problem, it's a QA and support.

For you next board try giving the support a call before you buy it. There are some companies with really good, responsive, educated support teams. The store you buy it from should also be educated in it.

 

[Salicete]

That's bad. Really bad. There are plenty of companies manufacturing in China that actually do have good support response in the rest of the world. It's not a China problem, it's a QA and support.

For you next board try giving the support a call before you buy it. There are some companies with really good, responsive, educated support teams. The store you buy it from should also be educated in it.

I'm thinking Allen & Heath this time around, but am going to do a bit of research before I buy this one.

 

[Salicete]

Sooooo, the board was defective, again, but this experience has taught me that sometimes, sticking with what you know is the way to go.

I wanted to like digital boards; I really looked forward to all the added capabilities. I am am fairly computer literate, so it wasn't that big of a leap. A digital board is, after all, just a sound processing computer at its heart. I wanted it, but it was not to be.

I've been using analog boards for decades, and despite their limitations, they just work, without all the annoying- fussy ~ one channel, function, effect, etc. ~at a time adjustments, constant "firmware updates" (better known as patches and fixes), freezes and complicated routing.

I freely admit I likely feel this way because I know analog, and if you grew up digital, or are more open to this sort of change that I am, you probably like digital; that is fine.

I grabbed a Mackie 24 channel analog board that took all of 15 minutes to unpack, plug in and get running. No, it isn't all tweaked out and I'll undoubtedly be fiddling with it for days, but for live mixing, I just like it better.

If I had 4 hands I could adjust 4 channels at once in an analog board; try that with your digital board. Yes, that was hyperbole, but you get my point.

I already own all the outboard equipment I need, so I've just decided I should just dwell in the past.

 

[ricandampeg]

I go "old school" as well! Originally had a TEAC M2600 analog 16 channel board. 8 sub outs that ran perfectly into my Tascam 234 analog tape deck. The only digital item in my setup was a Lexicon MP100 effects unit. Even though digital hides a lot of "sins" I prefer the old analog equipment. You see a lot of synthesizers now that claim to cop that "analog sound". I now have a Behringer 32 channel 8 sub out board.

 

[DirtDog]

I already own all the outboard equipment I need, so I've just decided I should just dwell in the past.

I'm in the same boat man - tech literate, the feature sets of these boards meet my requirements, I love the concept, but I'm a bundle of nerves deploying in a live situation - never know if the network connection is going to drop out or if the whole board is going to brick. That's happened to me more often than not. I know that a very high percentage of users don't have these issues but I've encountered this on two completely different units from two manufacturers. I'm also not getting full value of saving channel settings and scenes. Always seem to be tinkering with various combos or EQ, dynamics, FX etc - it's anything but simple!

Had a couple of recent gigs where we used older in-house analog systems - although these boards were missing some of the ease of use and much simpler routing options of their digital brethren, they were all pretty foolproof.

I'm 98.7% sure that I will go back to analog as well. Although the Presonus AR hybrid boards look interesting from a form factor perspective!

 

[Salicete]

I'm in the same boat man - tech literate, the feature sets of these boards meet my requirements, I love the concept, but I'm a bundle of nerves deploying in a live situation - never know if the network connection is going to drop out or if the whole board is going to brick. That's happened to me more often than not. I know that a very high percentage of users don't have these issues but I've encountered this on two completely different units from two manufacturers. I'm also not getting full value of saving channel settings and scenes. Always seem to be tinkering with various combos or EQ, dynamics, FX etc - it's anything but simple!

Had a couple of recent gigs where we used older in-house analog systems - although these boards were missing some of the ease of use and much simpler routing options of their digital brethren, they were all pretty foolproof.

I'm 98.7% sure that I will go back to analog as well. Although the Presonus AR hybrid boards look interesting from a form factor perspective!

Do yourself a favor, read up on the non-retailer/corporate sponsored forums and boards before you buy anything from PreSonus. Had I done so, I would not have gotten the two (both broken out of the box) that I did. There are many You Tube videos, forum posts and other info that will show you what will very likely go wrong.

Yes, I know LOTS of people here have used their stuff for years.....bla bla bla.

All I know is they struck out soundly with me.

Read up and judge for yourself.

 

[Salicete]

This is what fixed the problem...

A rock-solid Mackie analog board. (2404 VLZ4)

All steel construction, works ~perfectly~ out of the box without updates, downloads, glitches, freezes, patches, tricky work-arounds, tech support, or other such wonkery.

 

[DirtDog]

This is what fixed the problem...

A rock-solid Mackie analog board. (2404 VLZ4)

All steel construction, works ~perfectly~ out of the box without updates, downloads, glitches, freezes, patches, tricky work-arounds, tech support, or other such wonkery.

Nice! I spent considerable time playing around with both my Presonus and Behringer boards (XR16) over the last few days. Both are strong in their own ways and both are wonky in thier own ways. Couldn't get the Presonus to replicate the bug it gets when I use it in a live situation. Then I plugged in my old Alesis mini mixer and was able to get better results in seconds, even though it's a cheap POS!

I'm pretty convinced that I'm going back to analog to keep it simpler and I am leaning heavily towards the Soundcraft Signature 16 right now. I'd love if they had a Signature 18 or 20 in thier line, but they don't. I can live with 12 mono XLR inputs for form factor that is has. Was looking at the Mackie VLZ and ProFX boards as well, but I prefer the routing, AUX and FX capabilities and smaller footprint of the Soundcraft to the Mackie. Onwards.