Soundcraft Debuts 1603 And 1605 Club Music Mixers

Jan 28, 2006

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Following last year's successful DJ market re-launch of the Urei brand with the 1620LE and 1601 Series mixers, Soundcraft has now added a pair of club music mixers to the product lineup.

Primarily designed for permanent installation, the new four-channel Urei 1603 and seven-channel 1605 each offer total integration with house sound systems, providing a fully featured control center for clubs and performing DJs. With the legendary Urei sound quality, stunning looks, and Soundcraft's exacting manufacturing standards, these mixers are destined for popularity in nightclubs and dance venues around the globe.

Employing unique functionality, such as a rotatable connector panel so that connections may be made to the rear or underside of the mixer (for desktop or flush-mount), the Urei 1603 and 1605 have a rich feature set to match the requirements of today's DJs.

Much thought has gone into the design of the new mixers to ensure that they have the right features for club installation. An external mute interface can be triggered by a fire alarm, for example, to mute all music channels leaving only the announcement/safety mic channel open for public address.

A comprehensive monitoring system allows not only monitoring of cue channels and the mix output, but also the aux send and return signals. With spilt, cue and main mix, and the unique headphone flip function, as well as EQ on the headphone output, the 1603/1605's monitoring is second to none.

Input connectivity and flexibility is maximized; each channel has connections for a microphone (XLR), deck (RIAA on RCA phono), and line level (RCA phono) sockets, with the RIAA inputs switchable to be line level, giving the larger 1605 a total of seven mic and 14 line level input connections. No inputs need be used for an aux return as the aux (FX) output has its own return input conveniently located on the top panel.

And full connectivity options are provided on the outputs, too, with balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA connectors for both booth and master outputs, as well as 1/4" jack and 3.5mm mini-jack headphone connections.

A feature that installers will especially appreciate is the optional internal links on the line inputs, which allow either a 10dB reduction in gain to prevent input clip or +14dB gain increase to allow for easy connection of mp3 players, etc.

Each input has three-band isolation EQ with a gain range from full cut to +6dB, except the main mic input channel one, which has +/-15dB of gain on each band, while a VCA-based crossfader reduces fader noise and allows fully variable control curves for total control of crossfade mixing style and music genre.

Other features include a tri-color channel LED to indicate signal, beat (tempo) and peak warning, a 10-segment output meter, booth output configuration (stereo, left only, right only, or mono) allowing DJs to control the booth sound to their personal taste, EQ on both the headphone and booth outputs, and rack-mounting ears.

The suggested US list price on the Urei 1603 is set at $999.99, with the 1605 retailing for $1,499.99.