Zoom L20 vs Behringer XR18

[Boodang]

I've owned my xr18 for nearly two years now and very much enjoyed it. To make recording gigs easier (as it has built in SD recording) I just got the L20. Tried it out this week with one of my bands and have to say very impressed. Straight away the rest of the band thought it was a clearer sound.... pristine was the most used adjective. 

Many moons ago I bought one of the first zoom products, a result of which I haven't touched them since, but boy have they come on. This was an intuitive desk to set up, it doesn't have the plugins of the XR18 but initial impression is that it's a cleaner, and to my ears, nicer sounding desk. Recording a gig with it tomorrow, will be interesting to see how it performs both in terms of a live desk and recorder. Will report back.

Anyone else have thoughts on these two mixers?

[Boodang]

Recorded Friday nights gig with the L20. Spent most of Saturday sorting out the gig gear but just got to play back the recording through the desk. I have to say the L20 did an amazing job. I thought it sounded so good I called the guys up to come over and have a listen. 

I've recorded the band through the XR18 and then processed it thru various plugins in reaper. This however I think is good to mix down as it with no extraneous processing. I'm going to do some recording during the week with both the punk and blues bands, and I'm going to use the Zoom. We'll see how it compares to the XR18 but so far loving the zoom 

[Elfrasho]

I've got the xr18 and the l12; the smaller version of the l20. Both are excellent things, but theres definately pros and cons on both sides. The recording on the l12 was a dream ! literally a few seconds and your multitrack recording. For my purposes though, the ability for each member to control their own mix was the clincher for the xr18. And, I've mounted a small pc with reaper in the rack too, meaning its just a matter of bringing my mini portable monitor along any time i want to record. I've got a preset set up on reaper so thats theres limited set up required.  More faff, but still an acceptable amount of faff to be abel to record multitracks!

Edited Tuesday at 17:32 by Elfrasho

[Boodang]

So, having used the XR18 for the last couple of years, and using the L20 all last week to record.... I reckon the L20 is just a better sounding desk. With the XR you get carried away with the built in plugins, the L20 has none of that flashiness but to my mind it just sounds better straight after the gain stage. 

I've recorded with 5 different bands the last week and everyone mentioned how good they thought the L20 was compared to the XR. 

I'm relatively late to the party on these units but they're both awesome!!