SSL - New compact Desk

andyoz · March 2019

I think SSL have played a blinder releasing this.

It's still £999 ex Vat but it's cheap entry into SSL

Nerine · March 2019

Yeah. Saw this earlier. Defo going to check it out. I'm selling a summing mixer as it's surplus to requirement and I need a preamp or two, so this seems to be quite ideal. Plus it's SSL and I've always been a fanboy from when I used to work on a 4000E daily.

andyoz · March 2019

Yes, even an acoustic duo could use one live.

I'm getting a bit sick of digital for small scale stuff already and often wonder if we really need all the fx, compression etc options they throw up there...as much as we like to think it, most of us mere mortals aren't going to be up to speed dealing with them anyway...

turn a couple of knobs and do the sound better/worse test and move on with the actual performance side of things might be better..

It can even run a couple of sets of monitors in the home studio (or live) and you just click a button to make them come on!!

revsorg · March 2019

For a duo I have no problem understanding why this is a useful mixer, but I couldn't help wondering when watching this video why you wouldn't just invest in a couple more channels:

andyoz · March 2019

Yeah, does get complicated really fast!

PolarityMan · March 2019

those had better be REALLy nice preamps at that price

Nerine · March 2019

PolarityMan said:

those had better be REALLy nice preamps at that price

Not really. When you consider what a REALLY nice preamp costs...

andyoz · March 2019

...especially SSL ones!

PolarityMan · March 2019

eep jsut checked the price of a single channel.

Funkfingers · March 2019

The Six gets a largely positive review from Hugh Robjohns in Sound On Sound magazine. As usual, SOS bemoans the external PSU. The absence of phase inversion buttons seems slightly penny pinching. Perhaps, SSL is saving that feature for the mk2?

octatonic · March 2019

The external power supply will be a blessing if you ever need to replace it.

It is a pretty cabable little box.

Danny1969 · March 2019

Funkfingers said:

The Six gets a largely positive review from Hugh Robjohns in Sound On Sound magazine. As usual, SOS bemoans the external PSU. The absence of phase inversion buttons seems slightly penny pinching. Perhaps, SSL is saving that feature for the mk2?

An external PSU is a professional feature .... it means less noise, easier servicing and easier voltage correction for different countries. All my analog mixers have had external power supplies ....
Bit odd why it's designed with a single 15V rail when it's far easier to use dual 15V rails if you want high headroom and DC coupled gain stages. With the 5 pin connector they could have used a dual supply and still had 2 pins left doing nothing.

Phase inverter on the first 2 channels would have put less than a pound on the total build cost in China ..... seems a silly thing to leave off at first but then I've always found flipping the phase most useful on drums and other multi mic'ed stuff. This is more for vocals and single source stuff I guess so maybe it wouldn't have been that useful.

Funkfingers · April 2019

Danny1969 said:
An external PSU is a professional feature.

This never seems to prevent SOS product reviewers from grumbling about them.

Nerine · May 2019

Well, I’ve got one on order. Hopefully will receive it today. Will see what the score is and report back.
I used to work on a SSL 4000E, daily. So it’ll be interesting if this tiny thing has got some of that SSL mojo it’s big brothers have.

Musicwolf · May 2019

Funkfingers said:

The Six gets a largely positive review from Hugh Robjohns in Sound On Sound magazine. As usual, SOS bemoans the external PSU. The absence of phase inversion buttons seems slightly penny pinching. Perhaps, SSL is saving that feature for the mk2?

I had another scan of the SoS article and I didn't pick up on Hugh moaning about the external PSU

" The mixer is powered from an external universal 'line-lump' PSU, and is convection-cooled through vents under the front and at the rear. In use, it gets noticeably warm, with the top of the rear panel reaching a toasty 41 degrees Celsius after a few hours."

"The external line-lump power supply connects using a five-pin XLR — an interesting choice, since only two of the pins are actually needed — and delivers 15V DC at 3.3A (which is why the console runs slightly warm). DC-to-DC converters inside the mixer generate all the required symmetrical power rails and phantom voltages. The screen terminals of the audio connectors are grounded directly (less than 0.5Ω) to the safety earth connection at the PSU's IEC mains inlet, and a spectral analysis of the mixer's residual noise floor showed it to be very clean, with a few (mostly mains-related) spikes all below -120dBu. An on/off button is tucked away immediately above the XLR but doesn't isolate the PSU from the mains supply, obviously."

I know that Paul (White) has a bit of a bee in his bonnet about 'wall wart' PSUs but Hugh's gripes are usually reserved for kit that is prone to earth loops.

Nerine · May 2019

So, the SiX was finally delivered, well, collected, yesterday after a bit of a debacle with delivery addresses etc. I also took delivery of a UA Ox, but I'll write my thoughts up on that separately. Probably in a new thread.

First impressions are very good. Sonically, it sounds like an SSL. A major plus point.

The mic pre's seem very usable. Haven't run mics into them yet though, admittedly.

The EQ is really nice sounding and a lot more flexible than you'd expect and the channel compressors are also dialled in very nicely.

The bus compressor. Well. I worked on a 4000E for a long time, and I also had the SSL Mynx/X-Rack bus compressor. Even though the one in the SiX is simplified, I would say that it sounds better than the Mynx/X Rack variant.
To my ears it sounds much closer to the 4000E quad compressor that i used on the big console.

And yes, if you push the mix bus, providing your converters can take the level, it'll start to heat up nicely. It gives an edge and slight crunch to drums that you'll often hear on rock mixes. Especially those done by CLA et al.

The metering is also very good, and the routing is very flexible.

Cant wait to stem some mixes through it and see what's what. To my ears it sounds superior to the Phoenix Audio Nicerizer Mk2 I had.

So just my initial thoughts. Will give a more detailed review when I had had it for a while.

So far so good. Very pleased right off the bat.

andyoz · May 2019

Good to hear a real world experience.

Now SSL has broken that cherry, maybe we'll see an 8 channel version at £1500

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