D-Command Monitor Section Quality

[Simon Johansson]

I had a Dangerous D-Box before a got my D-Control.
Sold it when I got the ICON and haven´t regret it a bit.

X-mon and ICON and the integration between them is just great and to me the sound quality is as good as the D-Box.

[Jeezer]

Originally Posted by Simon Johansson

I had a Dangerous D-Box before a got my D-Control.
Sold it when I got the ICON and haven´t regret it a bit.

X-mon and ICON and the integration between them is just great and to me the sound quality is as good as the D-Box.

I may be reading things wrong here, but are you, or others here, saying you can (with the right mindset and possibly using it how it wasn't designed) use the Xmon as a 4 x stereo input summing mixer? (as well as a monitor controller).

You can 'sum' main, and stereo 1,2 & 3 (with the sum button on D-Command on + all 4 sources lit) to the main output (going to monitors) or indeed through alt/other outputs from xmon (to then route them back into your interface's A>D to recapture the 'summed' mix).

To use it like a summing mixer, albeit limited, you could send say all drums+bass to 'main' input, all vox to st 1, all guitars/keys to st 2 and all FX to st 4 then recombine them via xmon + Dcommand switches back to stereo...

1. Does the above make any sense in what I'm saying?
2. Would it even be worthwhile (Is Xmon doing anything less than what a dedicated "summing mixer" does - other than only have 4 stereo pairs instead of 8/16 as is typical on real summing mixers)
3. could it actually prove detrimental to the sound routing through Xmon and back in again, then back into convertors vs just sticking in the box

Obviously if using a hardware mix bus (comp/eq) that could also be factored in.

This isn't a question about the pros/cons of summing mixers, just if the Xmon itself contains the ability to, correctly (ie no phase or noise issues), sum in much the same way as a dedicated summing mixing (i.e Dangerous 2Bus LT) and would/does it give any sense of depth/seperation vs what spendy/'real' SM's apparently do (I've never used a summing mixer and have my doubts vs just using some good hardware on the mix bus or tracking with some nice pres/eqs/comps etc... I have very little issue with current ITB/PT summing quality but if Xmon can do this I just find it interesting )

cheers

[clivvy]

Originally Posted by Drew Mazurek

audio snobs and PT/Avid haters have knocked the X-Mon since it came out for whatever that's worth.

I've used mine for 10 years and have made countless records with it and never had an issue with its quality.

[clivvy]

i agree with Drew the xmon sounds really good and does the job if you want to use another control section its a personal choice you don't have to!

[Jeezer]

Yeah, back when I had a different audio interface with a less decent headphone amp built in, I'm sure the on-board D-Command headphone socket was sounding more detailed and revealing vs the interface HP out.

The ICON Headphone socket feed, comes back up the control cable (that goes between D and Xmon), so it's sent internally from Xmon, tapping into I guess the same decent quality that your interface analog outs are sending into Xmon analog ins. It seems to just forward that to D-Command, not sure if the headphone amp is in the D or in the Xmon itself though, but will assume in the D not that it matters. So that xmon/D headphone amp that derives its signal from your (on some interfaces) better quality line outs vs the interface's built in HP socket appeared, from memory, to send a very clear signal back. And the HP amp itself appeared to be pretty decent.

I can't say it if sounds better than a separate high quality HP out on something like a Benchmark, Hilo or whatever but seems it's a non issue as far as passing decent audio through the unit.

[francois]

before switching to the Trinnov Dmon I used a pair of AES into a Lavry blue for my Mains .Still do for A/B comparaison