The SQ-7 by Allen & Heath
- Hudson F.
- Nov 22, 2023
- 2 min read
The SQ-7 by Allen & Heath is one of Allen & Heath's flagship Soundboards and one of the best bang-for-the-buck options on the market. The soundboard that my school is considering upgrading to. This board was released in 2023 and has 33 faders and 48 channels. This board has built-in effects that include reverberation, delay, modulation effects, distortion/overdrive, pitch shift, EQ and filtering, dynamics processing, multi-band compression, and parametric EQ.
It has customizable fader labels with LCD screens at the top of each fader, as is the standard for modern soundboards. The SQ-7 is the flagship model in the SQ series of boards, the other models are the SQ-5 and SQ-6. The SQ-5 is the smallest of all of the models and the SQ-7 is the largest. The main difference between the sizes of the board is the number of faders, onboard preamps, outputs, and customizable buttons and knobs that are included.
My school is considering upgrading our GLD-80 to the SQ-7 for many reasons. The largest of which is the fact that the GLD-80 is getting old and is not getting updates anymore. We would also like to ‘keep with the times’ and stay with the mainstream of consoles. We want this because the more mainstream your console is the easier it is to train people on it and get support for it. This board comes in at $6,599 which is slightly more expensive than the GLD-80 was upon release. This price increase makes sense because when the GLD-80 was released it was the midrange model and the SQ-7 is the high-end model.
The second reason my school is considering upgrading is the ability to have more effects. The GLD-80 can only have 5 effects running(not including compressors which are on each channel) while the SQ-7 can have an almost infinite number of effects with external cards. These reasons combined make the SQ-7 a great option for my school and any other small venues looking for a great bang for the buck soundboard.