Allen & Heath CQ-20B 20i/8o Compact Stage Box-Style Mixer

Allen & Heath CQ-20B 20i/8o Compact Stage Box-Style Mixer
Product no: 9000-0116-2845 Bax Music Warranty: This product comes with a 3-year warranty.

General

Made for artists, bands, producers and engineers who're looking to streamline their workflow, the Allen & Heath CQ-20B digital mixer enables you to work faster, mix smarter and sound better. This compact yet feature-packed bit of kit comes loaded with A&H's FPGA technology and various time-saving tools to simplify your job, if not do it for you!

Your Personal Sound Assistant

The Allen & Heath CQ-20B features a number of built-in assistants, including a Gain Assistant that automatically optimises the gain level for the preamps, countering any signal peaks in the process. Then there's the Feedback Assistant, which identifies problematic frequencies and lets you filter them out at the push of a button. Meanwhile, the Automatic Mic Mixer constantly monitors the input channels, ensuring maximum sonic clarity by getting rid of background noise. All of these helpful functions can be activated or deactivated at will, so regaining in-depth manual control is always just a small tweak away.

Intelligent Features for Superb Sound

Allen & Health have also crammed a fistful of high-quality effects into the CQ-20B, along with an FX Assistant and tools to help you dynamically incorporate them. The reverb, delay and modulation effects even come with specific presets for different instruments, and are powered by four FX engines that can run at the same time. In addition, you're set up with all essential playback and recording options, a multi-channel USB audio interface, multi-track SD card playback and recording, basic stereo recording and playback via a USB stick, and stereo Bluetooth playback.

Control and Connections

Operating the A&H CQ-20B is amazingly simple since it can be wirelessly controlled using various apps, like the CQ-MixPad for mixer control and the CQ4You app for creating personal monitor mixes.. Housed in a stagebox-style unit, it's equipped with sixteen mic/line inputs - two of which can serve Hi-Z instrument inputs and come alongside another two stereo inputs.

Tips or comments about this product

Let op: De tablet dient ter illustratie en wordt niet met de mixer meegeleverd.

Specifications

Product features

Sustainable product	not specified
Number of channels	17-32
Number of analogue input channels	17 - 24
Number of analogue output channels	8
Network connections	none
Digital audio inputs	none
Digital audio outputs	none
Number of microphone inputs	13 - 16
Digital snake	no
Input	jack (6.3 mm), jack (6.3 mm stereo), XLR
Output connector	jack (6.3 mm), XLR (3-pin)
Inputs	no
Equalizer	none
Dynamics	none
Input level meters	via iPad / iPhone / iPod, via Android Device, via PC/Mac
Type of display	none
Volume control	automatic, via PC / Mac, via iPad / iPhone / iPod, via Android
Expansion possibilities	none
Built-in audio interface	USB (multi track)
Built-in audio player	USB, SD(HC), Bluetooth
Remote control	via iPad, via iPhone, via Android device, via Ethernet, via Wi-Fi
19 inches	19-inch rack mount (not included)
Connector position	front and back
Mixer power	power cable
Built-in effects	yes

Weight and dimensions including packaging

Weight (incl. packaging)	3,9 kg
Dimensions (incl. packaging)	45,0 x 26,5 x 26,0 cm

Product specifications

connections:
- inputs:
  - 20x inputs (16x mono/linkable, 2x stereo)
  - 8x XLR mic/line inputs
  - 8x XLR/Jack combo mic/line inputs
  - 4x TRS stereo line inputs
  - stereo Bluetooth input
- outputs:
  - 2x XLR Main LR outputs
  - 6x TRS AUX outputs
  - 2mm stereo mini-jack headphone output
- Dual Band WiFi (CQ as Host)
- RJ45 network port (CQ as Client)
- USB-A port for stereo audio record/playback & data
- USB-B port for multichannel audio record/playback (24x22)
- SD card reader for multichannel audio record/playback (24x22)
96 kHz input/output processing
4x FX Assist Engines
configurable Single/Dual Footswitch
dimensions: 37.2 x 15.4 x 13.4cm
weight: 2.6 kg

Write a review

Rob. December 16, 2023

Wrote the following about Allen & Heath CQ-20B 20i/8o Compact Stage Box-Style Mixer

Bax, Efficient and competitive pricing as usual. So, the CQ20B. Really small and light. Initial setup and testing proves a versatile little unit and will work well with a small band (prospective 4 pc in my case) Enough channels to much up the full drum kit, kick, snare, hihat, 2 Tom's, floor & overhead mono or stereo. Bass, Guitar, St keys, 4 voc, all using the XLR. That leaves 2 St jack pairs for interval feed and even external voc processor. St mains and 6 aux. Some digital features missing at present but maybe future firmware upgrades may address this, mainly mute groups and midi interfacing, facilities tgat come with more expensive ranges. BUT for a very affordable price you have a fair package with the tiniest footprint ever, tge whole thing including an iPad will fit in a rucksack. I have yet to Road test this little beauty but bench testing tge facilities including multitrack on SD and into my Logic DAW has proved very fruitful.

Reviews from other countries

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Husm January 24, 2025

Wrote the following about Allen & Heath CQ-20B 20i/8o Compact Stage Box-Style Mixer

Voor onze band hadden wij behoefte aan de mogelijkheid om individuele monitormixen voor onze in-ears te maken zodat wij alle instrumenten naar eigen smaak live kunnen mixen en het totale volume op het podium naar beneden kan.
Na uitgebreide vergelijking van verschillende mixers hebben wij uiteindelijk voor de CQ20B gekozen. Na bestelling bij Bax binnen twee dagen in huis! De bijbehorende draagtas is een aanrader om direct mee te bestellen... (hebben wij niet direct bijbesteld, gaat nog gebeuren).
Gisteravond voor het eerst live (in de oefenruimte) mee gewerkt. De mixer werkt zeer intuïtief, je hebt al vrij snel door waar je verschillende instellingen kunt aanpassen in de bijbehorende app.
Door gebruik te maken van de vooringestelde quick-channels hadden wij al vrij snel alle instrumenten en microfoons aan de mixer gekoppeld waarna de verschillende monitor-mixen voor (en door) de bandleden ingesteld konden worden. De auto-gain is op zich een mooi hulpmiddel, het is dan wel zaak dat de instrumenten op het "live"-volume bespeeld worden bij het instellen, anders worden instrumenten in de mix weggeknepen. Dit hadden wij vrij snel opgelost. Feedback assistent werkt uitstekend net als multi-track recording op SD kaart. Ingebouwde wifi werkt in de oefenruimte goed, wat dit op het podium doet is nog even de vraag, wij hebben voor de zekerheid een aparte router, maar deze was bij eerste gebruik niet nodig omdat het wifi-signaal prima was.
Bij ons bleken sommige devices de mixer niet direct te kunnen vinden na installeren van de app. Even opnieuw tablet of telefoon opstarten lostte dit probleem direct op. De mixer ondersteund gelijktijdig zes apparaten die CQ4U draaien en twee apparaten met de uitgebreide mix-pad.
Gekoppelde apparaten gebruiken hiervoor de wifi van de mixer, bluetooth is alleen beschikbaar als kanaal om bijvoorbeeld een klicktrack of andere geluidssporen af te spelen.
Na eerste gebruik zijn wij zeer enthousiast over de mogelijkheden en het gebruiksgemak.

Bart P. December 13, 2024

Wrote the following about Allen & Heath CQ-20B 20i/8o Compact Stage Box-Style Mixer

Ordered this mixer on Black Friday (10% off) so very good Bax-shop deal.
Perfect compact size to be used on stage (so no DI's needed) for smaller venues, remote control with a tablet through wifi and eventually a laptop with ethernet as backup.
20 channels is nice and suitable for most bands.
The App is nice and easy to use.
The autogain (does not work all the time), quickeq and feedback assistant are added value and can help for faster soundchecks,
but you still can switch to full EQ control to fine tune.
Also Multitrack on SDcard (used a 128Gb U3) and stereo recording to USB works perfect, so no need to bring a laptop for it.

Allen & Heath Introduce the Ultra-Compact CQ Digital Mixers

Tuesday 29 August 2023 By Kasper | Bax Music

Heads-up to all musicians, bands, sound engineers and producers who don't want to waste any time when it comes to figuring out the optimum audio settings! Allen & Health have just introduced three brand-new, ultra-compact digital mixers that are all about ease of use.