Sound Devices A-20 Nexus - interested in reactions from those who have used it

[James Louis]

I’m enjoying this thread, however I didn’t make it to the end to see if this was redundant. I will say that I think there could be a better workflow for your usb charger “cheat”

 

determine by the end of the evening who truly is going passed 12h, and just swap out their batteries. When other talent wraps and and you start collecting packs. Like bringing in a relief pitcher, if you catch my drift.

 

Better still is that you use that same opportunity to swap out the last few batteries rather than do it systematically, across the board, at lunch.

but I could see using that usb to “top off” the batteries for the first hours or setup time in the morning, and then disconnect them once on talent, when your glider’s in the air. I always like to claim my channels and leave things on such that others scanning will leave them alone. Your usb chargers help at this.
 

either way, let’s hope this takes away that lurching, dreaded feeling you received from some of our fellow responders…

[James Louis]

Also, I know you were being facetious, but instead of twins, just run the test again, swapping packs (with constant patching) between your pair of talent. Then take accumulated results. Yes, every body has a specific absorption rate SAR, and it’s real. Some talent are like walking plasma storms 

[martijn76]

On 7/26/2023 at 12:29 AM, The Documentary Sound Guy said:

You're in luck then, SD announced the A20 Tx today, and it boasts 12hrs battery life (I didn't see what chemistry ... maybe more on Lithiums?)

They claim UP to 12h and i am

rather sure that this is

with energizer on 2mw

 

i tested 20mw+rec with dpa 6060 and get 9h continuously, been told from colleagues that 10mw very often would work great. For me having played around with app a little the remote on off (only having 2 tx for now) the 9h i am very much okay with (as for me so many benefits come for a small runtime price) like the quick and reliable turning on off (smal cautioun here only time will proof this.

[BDC]

Hello everyone,

This is my first post on this forum!

 

Like others, I'm looking to replace my old analog wireless to digital wireless.

 

I'm looking at those that can transmit and record at the same time.
On the market, I think there are only three brands:
Zaxcom, Sounddevices, Deity.

 

As for the Nexus, it's not cheap.
It seems that Sounddevices has not implemented the chipset Class Compliant (CC) on the nexus.

It's a real shame, because via usb-A or usb-c, we could have plugged the 16 wireless channels directly into a tablet.

But I guess it's a commercial policy... because with a mixpre10, which has the chipset Class Compliant, you can fit into a tablet...

 

For those who have the nexus, but not the 8 series from sound devices, can we use a midi controller on the usb-A, to control the Gain Forward?

Edited January 6 by BDC
Error traduction

[Erob]

On 1/5/2024 at 4:51 PM, BDC said:

It seems that Sounddevices has not implemented the chipset Class Compliant (CC) on the nexus.

It's a real shame, because via usb-A or usb-c, we could have plugged the 16 wireless channels directly into a tablet.

But I guess it's a commercial policy... because with a mixpre10, which has the chipset Class Compliant, you can fit into a tablet...

Are you saying you want would just want to plug the Nexus directly into an iPad to record everything? 

[BDC]

Yes, that's right.

If the nexus had the CC chipset, you could record directly onto an ipad.

It's a possibility that needs to be considered.

But I'm not sure that sounddevices will allow it.

With mixpre, for example, it's possible, even on a phone. On the other hand, the CC chipset of the 8 series is blocked to just 2 usb...

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

I think it's strange to frame this as Sound Devices "won't allow" it.  No, they aren't designing their products with iPad (or laptop) recording in mind, but that's because their products are largely intended to stand alone.

Yes, that's a design choice, and yes, they could add a USB interface chip if they thought it would sell.  But, for the most part, that's not their market.  They aren't taking anything away from us by making that design choice; they are simply designing for the market that exists, which mostly uses stand-alone recorders or other audio devices.  Notably, this includes Sound Devices own recorders, but any device that accepts analogue, AES or dante audio will work.  Could they have included USB as an I/O interface?  Probably.  But, they didn't, and given their market and their marketing, I wouldn't expect them to.

There are good reasons why most professionals use stand-alone equipment ... it is purpose-built, and often more reliable and ergonomic than recording to a laptop (at least under the circumstances that we work).  There's an entire section on this website devoted to laptop-based recording workflows, and I can think of one or two mixers who do this.  But they are a minority.

If you want an iPad or laptop-based workflow, there are devices out there that let you do that.  You can even get devices that will let you connect the Nexus:  I would imagine it's possible to get a Dante interface for an iPad, and you can definitely do it for a laptop.

I do think a USB interface is an interesting feature request for the Nexus.  Maybe SD would add it in a future product if they saw demand for it.  I do wonder whether it would be reliable, and I think it would take some dollars to develop the software to support it, so I'm not surprised it's not supported out-of-the-box.

At the end of the day, they made the design choice they made.  If you need a USB interface, the product isn't for you.  But, just because Sound Devices didn't design the capabilities that you want into the Nexus doesn't mean they've taken something away from you.

[Conor]

On 1/5/2024 at 11:51 PM, BDC said:

Zaxcom, Sounddevices, Deity.

You're just missing Wisycom from this list.

 

As for your USB question, it's kind of a moot point. No professional wants to use audio over USB to a tablet as their recorder, for many reasons. Better to have a dedicated recorder like the 888 and use the SD remote app on a tablet for remote control and metadata editing as needed.

[BDC]

29 minutes ago, Conor said:

You're just missing Wisycom from this list.

 

Wisycom has no digital transmitter.

 

32 minutes ago, Conor said:

As for your USB question, it's kind of a moot point. No professional wants to use audio over USB to a tablet as their recorder, for many reasons.

 

Why not?

 

It also depends on the professional's field.
He can be involved in documentaries, fiction, live or recorded shows, music recording...

 

10 hours ago, The Documentary Sound Guy said:

I think it's strange to frame this as Sound Devices "won't allow" it. 

 

But that's the reality...

On mixpre, the CC chipset is limited only by the number of inputs and outputs.
On the 8 series, the CC chipset is limited to two inputs and two outputs.

This reminds me of the case of the sonosax M2D2, which I own anyway, because it's fantastic, but it too is limited to two inputs and two outputs on the CC chipset, whereas there are four inputs available... Development error, lack of knowledge of the multi CC chipset or commercial strategy...

 

10 hours ago, The Documentary Sound Guy said:

Could they have included USB as an I/O interface?  Probably.  But, they didn't, and given their market and their marketing, I wouldn't expect them to.

 

If Sounddevices wants to conquer "THE" markets, it has to think of more than just mobile audiovisual professionals. There are other fields, as I said above.

 

10 hours ago, The Documentary Sound Guy said:

You can even get devices that will let you connect the Nexus:  I would imagine it's possible to get a Dante interface for an iPad

 

Unfortunately not with the CC multi chipset...

 

11 hours ago, The Documentary Sound Guy said:

I do think a USB interface is an interesting feature request for the Nexus.  Maybe SD would add it in a future product if they saw demand for it.  I do wonder whether it would be reliable, and I think it would take some dollars to develop the software to support it, so I'm not surprised it's not supported out-of-the-box.

 

There's no shortage of iPad software...

For example, for live show productions, I use AUM, iMix Pro64, Audiobus 3,...

What's more, their program already exists, SD-Remote, although it's true that for the moment, it hasn't been developed for the nexus…

 

11 hours ago, The Documentary Sound Guy said:

But, just because Sound Devices didn't design the capabilities that you want into the Nexus doesn't mean they've taken something away from you.

 

 

But if that's the case...
The possibility of doing it! 
A chipset costing just a few euros might have made this possible, if it were installed in the machine...

It remains to be seen whether this is a commercial strategy, or a misunderstanding of the Class Compliant, or even poor market research...

 

 

Otherwise, I'm leaning towards Zaxcom...

[Conor]

16 minutes ago, BDC said:

Why not?

Not a field-ready rugged build
No stable TC generation
No physical potentiometers and interface
Being at the mercy of Apple/iOS updates etc
No removable media
No dual recording

We could go on
 

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

10 hours ago, BDC said:

If Sounddevices wants to conquer "THE" markets, it has to think of more than just mobile audiovisual professionals. There are other fields, as I said above.

This is the crux of it.  I really hope they don't branch into other fields, because making a product for *everyone* makes it less suitable for the professionals who currently use their products.  They are already going in that direction I'm afraid...

 

The reason production sound mixers use Sound Devices is because they are highly specialized tools that were developed specifically for the (very niche) requirements of our industry.  Their success is because they understood what our jobs needed, and built tools that did things that other, more mainstream tools either couldn't do, or didn't do as well.
 

11 hours ago, BDC said:

Unfortunately not with the CC multi chipset...

Oh, I guess that means the iPad "won't allow" you to use dante.  That's too bad, Apple must want you to buy their pro audio products, which is why they didn't design the iPad to support the industry standard for multi-channel audio routing:  dante.

Or, maybe the iPad just isn't designed with pro audio as one of its main use-cases.  Maybe that's why companies like Sound Devices build specialized tools for these things.

 

11 hours ago, BDC said:

22 hours ago, The Documentary Sound Guy said:

I do think a USB interface is an interesting feature request for the Nexus.  Maybe SD would add it in a future product if they saw demand for it.  I do wonder whether it would be reliable, and I think it would take some dollars to develop the software to support it, so I'm not surprised it's not supported out-of-the-box.

 

There's no shortage of iPad software...

I wasn't talking about user-facing software.  I was talking about whatever custom drivers would be needed to support all the various things the Nexus does that aren't encapsulated in a standardized class compliant audio interface driver, not to mention all the software internal to the Nexus that would be needed to support a PC interface.  I'm sure this is doable, but it's not an insignificant task ...

To make this real:  One of the major things the Nexus does is provide remote control of the transmitters that are paired with it.  There is no standard for how such control could be provided across a USB connection (at least, not as far as I know), which means SD would have to write software to enable this functionality.  The same goes for every other specialized feature:  frequency tuning, timecode proliferation etc. etc.

You seem to be under the impression that the Nexus could "just work" if it just included a class compliant audio interface chip.  But the Nexus isn't a audio interface, it's a very specialized audio receiver.  It does many, many things that a class compliant audio chip isn't designed for.  And it doesn't act as an audio interface.  Because it's not an audio interface.  Why are you expecting a rabbit to act like a duck

 

11 hours ago, BDC said:

Otherwise, I'm leaning towards Zaxcom...

Good luck with that.  Speaking from experience, Zaxcom does not work with USB or *any* other manufacturers.  Zaxcom has many great points, but interoperability is not one of them.

[BDC]

OK, the nexus doesn't have this option...

Compared to the Dante and the Ipad, it's damage that Audinate hasn't developed a multi version of the Class Compliant.

I wanted, eventually, to use the Nexus with the cantar or the RX4+ Sonosax, or the series 8. But also to have the possibility of using it in addition with an iPad.

 

What I meant, in relation to Zaxcom, was that their system might be a better choice... Obviously not with the ipad !
 

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

I just want to apologize because I think misunderstood how you meant "won't allow".  From what you wrote first, I thought you were suggesting that Sound Devices was deliberately making their hardware worse for competitive reasons.  Having gone back and re-read what you wrote, I think you probably just wished they'd built in an additional capability that would have been useful.

Sorry if I came on a bit strong.

[BDC]

No problem.

 

What's more, I've read and reread your thoughts on why you decided to move to Zaxcom.

[BDC]

On 1/5/2024 at 10:51 PM, BDC said:

It seems that Sounddevices has not implemented the chipset Class Compliant (CC) on the nexus.

It's a real shame, because via usb-A or usb-c, we could have plugged the 16 wireless channels directly into a tablet.

With automatic translators, I have to be more careful...

It should read "It's really regrettable" and not "It’s a real shame".

[IronFilm]

12 hours ago, The Documentary Sound Guy said:

This is the crux of it.  I really hope they don't branch into other fields, because making a product for *everyone* makes it less suitable for the professionals who currently use their products.  They are already going in that direction I'm afraid...

A broader market appeal then means, more sales and thus:

1) more dollars to put into R&D to make even better products

2) more affordably priced products, because fixed costs can now be spread over a large number of units sold 

3) a combo of both #1 & #2 above

 

Bonus item:

4) more users to discover weird new bugs, that they can then push out firmware to fix. Making it less likely that you will be the first person to discover it!

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

9 hours ago, IronFilm said:

A broader market appeal then means, more sales and thus:

1) more dollars to put into R&D to make even better products

2) more affordably priced products, because fixed costs can now be spread over a large number of units sold 

3) a combo of both #1 & #2 above

I get how that makes sense intuitively, but I don't feel that is how it has been playing out in reality.

If broader market appeal really meant better, more affordable products, we'd be using Sony Recorders and Sennheiser wireless, and there would be no place for companies like Sound Devices, Rycote, Ambient, Cantar, etc. etc.

I would say Sound Devices turned towards the broader market when they were purchased.  Since that time, they have bifurcated their recorder line into MixPre and 8-series.  The MixPre is designed for the broader market, and isn't really suited to film work once you get beyond a certain level of proficiency (due to lack of outputs and routing options, and an impoverished UI).   The 8-series is the true successor to the 6-series, but it is now more than double the price.  And, as much as the 8-series is an evolution of the 6-series, I wouldn't say its development was focussed on what film mixers truly needed.  If they were really focussed on our market, they would have paid more attention to power draw / battery life and weight, with less emphasis on doing more in software.

So, numbering your points as you did above:

1)  I'd say this is a wash.  I'm not convinced our market niche is getting better products.  They still pay attention to our market, but a lot of R&D money is going towards products that aren't designed for our niche.  I do give them kudos for the A20 wireless ... even though that is largely an acquisition, not in-house R&D.  It's not like they've abandoned sound for film, but they aren't as focussed.
2)  Unless you can do your job on a MixPre, I'd say this is objectively false.  SD costs way more than they did before they shifted focus.
3)  Isn't an independent point

4)  Bonus:  This is true ... more users do mean better bug-testing ... but *are* there more users of the 8-series?  My sense is the price hike and the existence of the MixPre means there are probably less compared to the 6-series.  And 8-series is far more software dependent.
 

Anyhow, I'm ranting a bit.  I wanted to respond, and I hope I did so politely, but I'm pretty far off-topic for a thread about the A20.

[Tim Norris]

2 hours ago, The Documentary Sound Guy said:

I would say Sound Devices turned towards the broader market when they were purchased.  Since that time, they have bifurcated their recorder line into MixPre and 8-series.  The MixPre is designed for the broader market, and isn't really suited to film work once you get beyond a certain level of proficiency (due to lack of outputs and routing options, and an impoverished UI).   The 8-series is the true successor to the 6-series, but it is now more than double the price.  And, as much as the 8-series is an evolution of the 6-series, I wouldn't say its development was focused on what film mixers truly needed.  If they were really focused on our market, they would have paid more attention to power draw / battery life and weight, with less emphasis on doing more in software.

 

I have been saying (or at least thinking) the same thing for a while. I "upgraded" to the 688/SL6 replacement at great cost to enter the world of digital wireless with no cables. I am quite happy with my Scorpio yet I long for a modern Professional ENG mixer/recorder that doesn't break the bank. The MixPre 10 is not suitable.

 

As one of the ENG guys who has supported Sound Devices from their very beginnings, I sometimes feel abandoned while marveling at the capabilities of the current machines. There are some very cool features I will never use nor need.

 

Cheers,

Tim