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(More customer reviews)The Powerpod 820 Powered Mixer was purchased as a 2nd unit for our acoustic instrument band. The Phonic was appealed as it has phantom power, it can run monitor speakers, and it is it is extremely lightweight. It is more complicated than the basic 4-channel powered mixer as it has some features found in a studio mixer.
The 820 has three modes of operation. One is as a stereo powered mixer for live sound. The 2nd mode is for mono live sound with a mono monitor channel. The 3rd mode allows you to use the main amplifiers to drive a submix signal path. These modes are controlled by the AMP SELECT switch.
Modes 1 and 2 duplicate the MAIN-MAIN and MAIN-MONITOR modes of Peavey MP and XR Powered Mixers. Each of the 2 power amps in 820 can handle two 8 ohm speakers. Each amplifier has two output jacks so you can connect all four speakers directly to the back of the mixer. In an oversight by Phonic, however, they put the speaker output jacks too close together so if you use the heavy duty Peavey TR speaker cables with the larger diameter grips, it is difficult to get 4 of them plugged in at once.
The 820 boasts 16 digital effects of which only 2 are useful to us. One is Hall Reverb and the other is Room Reverb. There are effects send controls for each of the 6 input channels, an effects Parameter knob to control the time parameter of the selected effect, and separate knobs to control effects send to main and effects send to monitor. One oddity of the effects processor is that you have to turn it on using a separate switch rather than it just being there when you send a signal down this path. Once turned on, however, the 820 remembers your setting even after turning off the power.
You can also connect the 820 to remote effects processors and return the signal back into your mix. These connections would be handy if you wanted to use this mixer in a studio setting. It defeats the purpose of a compact mixer of this type to lug around a bunch of ancillary equipment to live sound gigs, but if you're the type that likes to dream up uses for connections, patch cords, and signal paths, the 820 has most of the jacks that you'll need.
There is an auxiliary stereo send circuit (AUX 3-4) that kicks in when you push the mute button on any of the 6 input channels. You can send the signal from that channel out to another device, or, at the push of a button, patch it through the control room circuit and listen to one channel at a time on your headphones, through the monitors, or through the main speakers. This feature would appeal to the sound geek perhaps. We've done many gigs without this feature, and I can't imagine the other members of the band doing this.
The manual is fairly typical which means that it does not explain matters in much detail; rather it hints at how to do something that is very straight forward on other equipment. For example, to play a CD through the main speakers at intermission, you plug the output of the player into the 2T RTN inputs (another naming oddity). Then you have to patch that into the control room submix, then assign that to the main speakers (most units simply have a separate knob to control this input). This procedure makes what is a trivial task on other units more complicated, and it isn't explained well.
Others have complained about the blue power light being too bright. It is too bright, but we carry duct tape in our gig kit for many reasons. The unit is more complicated than it closest competitor, the Nady SPM-4250, but even our less technically savvy band members have grasped the operations of the 820.
There is an extra layer of nomenclature on the board that seems out of place in a live sound setting. The monitor path is also called AUX 1, the effect path is labeled AUX 2. You can send all four signal paths (main, monitor, effects, and aux) out to external devices, but the way they named it is unnecessarily confusing especially when setting up a live sound gig. Fortunately, Phonic made the knobs different colors, so if you can remember black for the monitors and blue for the effects send, you can ignore their signal path names.
So far, the 820 has been a good unit (only a few uses to date). If you've not used a board with gain controls before, you'll appreciate the control this gives you. There aren't too many compact powered mixers on the market right now that have the features of the Phonic, so this is a recommended buy.
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