Hello
I am orienting for a new mixer and I thought the guys from mairlist must have a opinion.
The D&R airlite is made for mairlist but in the different forums you hear 2 reactions great! And cheap building and ferry bad usb audio.
The first mixer (not D&R) above it is the Sonifex s0 if you buy new.
But that’s twice the money.
You mairlist guys must have some ideas because there bouth have mairlist integrated.
And if I mis a great mixer please point me to it.
Gr Henk
Hi Henk,
before I start let me stress that buying a (in fact any) mixer is usually a compromise between your requirements, your budget and your preference or taste.
That said, I recently bought a D&R Webstation (the little brother of the Airlite) and I’m quite happy with it - I think the Airlite experience will be pretty much the same, so I’ll give you my first thoughts on the Webstation.
As you said, these mixers are on the budget side for broadcast mixers, but they perform quite well in my opinion. You do notice the shortcomings, e.g. in the faders (if you ever touched a console with Penny & Giles faders you’ll instantaneously know). They’re very light to the touch and their behaviour needs some getting used to - but they do the job and overall it’s a nice mixer.
Talking about the USB soundcards these mixers offer you’ll find lot of reference to that in this forum. They are cheap which makes them a bit fiddely to deal with in windows - I strongly recommend following the procedure that D&R themselves recommend to rename the interfaces to something meaningful.
Apart from that (which are only minor issues in my opinion) I am very happy with the Webstation. It’s a great tool for the hobby radio jock like I am and yes, it does have a price tag, but one that’s manageable. Unfortunately I do not know anything about the Sonifex consoles so I can’t say if they’re actually worth the double price tag - and as I said in the beginning: lastly it’ll be a compomise between requirements, budget and preference anyway.
Hope you’ll find a good solution & kind regards,
Henning
P.S.: To make things clear: I am not a “mAirlist guy” I am not affiliated with the company in any way - I’m just a very happy user 
Thanks anyway,
Whith bad usb I only mean bad sound quality. That you loose you audio settings after evry windows updates is only annoying.
I am just like you a hobby user and whe had the discussion at home buy new instead of used professional mixer like a 20 year old Dhd.
I now use a Allen heath xb 14 witch is great but 4 stereo channel is to less.
And the allen heath was bought seccond hand and it when you buy it the say it like new wen you get home you find a broken channel en outher things that come through age.
To less, hm… 
https://www.d-r.nl/airmate-12-usb.html
… plus an additional soundcard with enough outputs (or two that can be cascaded). I think that’s the best compromise the analog broadcast world can offer you.
Exactly my setup 
Between 4 and 12 is a big difference.
The airmate 8 would be sufficient.
But in your opinion choice between.
Airmate and Airlite?
The build quality of the airmate looks better but the digital function of mairlist is built in in the airlite.
A airmate with a velleman does also start tracks has no built-in usb (can use my tascam)
But what do I miss in mairlist functionality built-in in the airlite.
Well, let’s look at the XB-14²:
Look at the Airmate 8 USB:
Do you really think it’s enough? Sure?
Although I have bought a second hand Airmate 8, I’m thinking about a sub-mixer for my mics because there are not enough channels for me… Stereo is fine, but what happens when I need more mics here?
Well, there are prepared sockets, yes, but a Velleman? Hm…
@calypso60 what do you use? Isn’t it a zero-delay-(…)?
From my personal experience: Airmate.
The Airlite is the perfect all-in-one-solution, but I’m afraid, I wouldn’t be happy with it. At first, I wanted to have one, but the longer I thought on it, I was no longer convinced like at the first day I saw it.
That’s my personal impression, too.
I had the luck to work on an Airlite in a studio of a mAirList user when I was on travel in his region 2019 and I felt a serious difference in the feeling / handling.
Translated:
Of course, you can’t expect premium-workmanship or -audio quality compared to a DHD console that costs ten times as much.
Why don’t you add another (let’s say) 2k€ and buy an Airence (Main Unit and Expansion Unit)?
So you will get USB 1-4 like in an Airlite, Telco 1&2 with RJ11 sockets like in the Airmate and 6 free line channels in the expansion unit. 
That’s why I would prefer the Airmate 12 instead of an Airence when you need more channels.
Just my 5 Ct.
The airmate 8 would be enough because.
I use only 1 mic (nobody wants to sit beside me).
For mairlist I use player A/B, do not want second layer and cart 1 till 3 that 5 stereo faders the outher 3 you can use the second layer makes 11.
Back to Airlite / airmate.
What do I mis on mairlist integration with the airmate.
The non stop and voice track I don’t use. But there is more I think?
That’s true. The Airmate has no integrated remote control that communicates with mAirList.
So this mixer doesn’t follow the family logic of Webstation / Airlite / Airence. It’s a different one and needs a remote control interface like @calypso60 wrote you.
The Airmate isn’t integrated into mAirList as it is the same with mixers by Allen & Heath, Yamaha or Behringer etc.
Integrated “multichannel sound card” (tbh, it’s a USB hub with 4 Chips, see details at the end oft this post).
Sometimes the USB Audio-Codecs must be re-configured due to big Windows updates and, as you wrote before, the quality seems not to be the best (I don’t know). No problem for you, you still have the external soundcard you used with your XB-14.
Additional Buttons not only for Cartwall purposes; feel free to place any remote control command there.
(…) hmmm
We have received reports that it’s better to connect the Airlite to USB 2 instead of USB 3. Sometimes this may cause errors, but it also may work well. We don’t know exactly, but recommend using USB 2.0. Your computer should have such a free port.
You will find a good technical explanation from Torben (written in german) here:
The important part in english (translated automatically):
These are four USB audio chips from the PCM29xx series from Texas Instruments. There is nothing wrong with them at first, they are standard USB audio codecs (stereo), as used in numerous devices.
The problem is that the D&R consoles have several identical chips that are internally connected via a hub. The simplest variant of these chips, which does not have a unique serial number or a designation that can be adapted by the manufacturer / integrator. Therefore they are simply called “USB AUDIO CODEC” and are numbered from 1 to 4 by Windows - unfortunately in the order in which they were recognized by Windows, which does not have to correspond to the actual order of the faders.
You should copy the whole text in Google Translate, it’s very interesting what Torben wrote there.
A airmate it will be.
Al the outher function you explained can be achieved with my novation launchpad . My tascam soundcart always works also after windows updates. And the sound quality is very good.
If you use a android cell phone there is an option, this page isn’t in englis select outher language.
Choose Duits (German in the Netherlands) and evrything is translated.
I do read the German section (on interesting topics) but reply isn’t a good idea because some words are very bad translated and I don’t have a clue wat I am saying 
Hoi Henk,
I had an Airlite and was not happy with it, because of the low quality USB soundcard an irritating beep was noticed especially when there was no sound played through the mixer.
I decided to buy a second hand, 20 year old, DHD RM3200 which costed €2500 with a MADI interface card. I also bought a RME MADI soundcard for an extra €400. Now I have a completely digital setup and am very happy with it. I did not have any regrets with this mixer, what an amazing quality (build and sound)!
I have no option to edit my last post and I also am not sure that it will make any contribution to this discussion (please remove if not) but I have a small movie of my setup, maybe it’s interesting to watch (I know geeks, like us, like that hahaha): My home radiostudio setup
Nice. But why did you dispose your PPM(s) under the table?
Hoi ReneM
If I look in my hart I rather by a older dhd.
Fidel out how evrything works.
But my Allen heath was around €400 and looking backwards it was to expensive, my experience with people that sell things are mostly to expensive.
And the don’t tell if something is not working…
Thats the reason I want to buy new.
But I love your setup.
@Tondose To be honest, I have no idea how to Fine tune these type of meters, they are only here for decoration. I could buy these meters for a really cheap price. For the levels I purely rely on Breakaway and the LIM Led on my DHD ::
@henk I understand exactly what you mean. When I bought the DHD I have had some really bad nights haha And what you describe above happened to me; the DHD was not 100% ok. Luckily the guy where I bought the DHD from had a basement full of DHD parts so I was allowed to return the broken module and got another one.