Behringer SD16

This item is built like a tank! The unit is made from heavy gauge steel for the case, with hard rubber bumper ends to endure being kicked around on stage. I can't imagine it ever breaking.

The MIDAS preamps sound beautiful, and it is ideal for separating your desk from the stage, off to one side or even at the FOH position.

Indicator lights tell you when it is connected and active, though the need for a separate power cord is a bit of a pain. I used a previous product called a BrikWorm (UK product) which was powered via the ethercon cable, and this was simply brilliant.

Main cable aside though, this unit is really well made, and perfect for the job it is intended for. Remote preamp control and remote phantom power is a good feature, and the unit has 16 inputs and 8 outputs, so there are lots of routing options available.

The unit doesn't get too warm like other products, and is passively cooled, so won't drag in lots of dust and muck through a fan, as it hasn't got one.

Well worth the investment, which is not that much for such a great stage interface.

Bought this to add additional inputs to my X32 Rack and give us some additional flexibility in the setup. It's incredibly robust and well designed to handle the rigours of being thrown around on a stage as well as having the jack/XLR combo inputs which are great when you don't always have the right cables or adaptors to hand. It's simple to set up with AES-50 routing and output selection - put simply, it just works. The powered Ultranet ports are also a big bonus on stage too for the P16M personal mixers we have, saving the need for power supplies or an Ultranet distribution unit. Overall this a great bit of kit and I will probably be buying another very soon!

Very nice stagebox, does everything it needs to do. Inputs are very sturdy enough, so inputs won't come out themselves. As easy as plug and play from this side.

We got this one instead of the S16, which turned out good because after all we didn't need all the configuration options and monitoring of the S16, because all of it can be done remotely by our Behringer X32. Works perfectly with a simple €20 Cat5e cable (higher will probably do too).

At first I got no sound from it until I blew the speakers up by switching the little switch on it's side to it's correct position. Don't forget such little things :)

I was pleased when Behringer bought out the SD16 as it solves my need for 1/4 inch jack inputs on the stage box. Its the perfect partner for the LP16 from Cymatic if you work with backing tracks live.

It's slightly less wide than the S16 and has rubber bumpers which you remove if you want to rackmount with the included brackets. There's no ADAT on the SD16, but there is a nice 4 port ultra net which means you can hook up the powerplay personal monitor controllers via cat5 without a separate hub or having to cascade, the ports also power the powerplays so you don't have to find mains on stage for the wall warts.

I've not found any issues with ground loops on the 1/4 inch ins, but I've only been testing with the LP16 so far. The 1/4 ins might be a big help to some who want to avoid lots of XLR DIs.

There's 8 outs too and you can cascade multiple units on the same aes link, meaning the x32 could see at least 4 of these with its 2 aes ports.

All in all its different enough from the s16 to be a useful addition to the family.