After spending a whole day looking at interfaces and mixers i think you have won me over with this A&H Qu-16. So i guess it will act as my main soundcard right? Quite like an interface but with faders, eqs etc.
Exactly.
Thanks for your help dude, really appreciate it.
Iām about to buy the A&H this morning from Thomann 
One other thingā¦i see that at the back of the mixer the 16ins are all mono jacks. Is that something normal?
I always worked with stereo channels in my vst digital world
Itās a 16 channel mixer, that means 16 ins. To get stereo channels you just pair then up on the mixer - the upside being that you can mix and match stereo and mono in whatever way you want.
I mean no offence by this but is dropping 1600 euros a great decision? Your money I guessā¦
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That is standard.
Before you buy, you should at least ask yourself, are 16 channels mono enough for the next years of your work? The only reason why I didnāt buy the Qu-16 is that it canāt be extended later.
AFAIK the Qu-Pac supports up to 32 channels and is cheaper. Same technology inside, but as a rack unit.
The new SQ series is exactly, what would suit me, the 16 channel unit can be extended.
BTW ā¦ AFAIK A&H are very much appreciated by many synth heads ā¦
Well iām still going all over this forum to see what i really need. I want to do multi-track recording so was looking at interfaces and mixers. Obviously i want to keep going the hardware way and iām already looking at stuff like the A4 and the Matrixbrute to add. So with all honesty i dont want to be thigh on what i spend nowā¦and then regret it in the future.
Iām not really sure if i need the faders, eqs etc because i have always used the Cubase mixer, automation etcā¦but many people say that by time you would want the live feeling of a mixer.
Iām a techno producer and for now i am only looking to be using my gear in the studio.
Wise words, indeed. As I was adviced by an expert sometimes ago, who said, buy studio gear like desk, monitors, or outboard as to be used during the next ten years. Otherwise you will buy double and tripple and waste much money.
Those are my exact thoughts.
What do you think about the A&H Qu-16?
Im thinking of connecting the 8 voices from my Rytm MKII to 12-ins (some in stereo)ā¦my still to buy A4 to 2-ins(stereo)ā¦and my also still to but Matrix brute to another 2-ins(stereo)
Right there all my 16ins are already taken 
I have done some research about digital mixers myself searching the net and many times I found reviews from experts and users saying that A&H delivers great sounding products, be it analogue or digital. There was never a bad experience, when I remember right.
There are alternatives like boards by Yamaha, or Soundcraft, which compare to the A&H Qu-series w.r.t. features, quality, and price - and some at a higher price range like Midas.
I havenāt got an A&H yet, because I wanted a small sized board, with about 16 motorised faders, a multi-channel digital audio-interface to the computer, which would fit easily in my studio, connect to a couple of mono and stereo instruments (it would be more than 32, if all are counted), some outboard gear, and all of this without having to operate manually a patch-bay, which is, what I do now. For me the downside was that the Qu-Pac has not faders, the Qu-16 is not extendable, and the Qu-32 would take to much space.
This said, the SQ- Series looks very interesting for me, because each model allows to extend with stage-box like units, even the SQ 16.
If you are planning to use multitimbral instruments like the A4, using all outs of the A4 as single channels would be better, rather to mix down everything to stereo inside the A4. Synth voices can demand quite different mixing environments. I would recommend to treat the A4 as four different instruments, which can have significantly different timbres.
Comparing both mixers with each other it seems that QU-16 has more Max.number of input channels while the SQ5 has more Analog Line Inputsā¦whats the difference in that?
It also states below that the SQ5 does not have a Built in Audio playerā¦does that mean that i would need a separate interface?
As I understood the differences, the max number of inputs channels refers to the physically built in channels, the sockets so to say. The number of busses decides how many channels can be handled by the DSP. This woud be 22 for the Qu16 and 48 for the SQ5.
The row Digital in-/outputs expandable makes the big difference. The Qu16 has none, the SQ5 can be expanded by using dedicated interfaces, which have to inserted at the back (card-slot). After extension the SQ5 can handle up to 48 channels simultaneously.
Both sport the āComputer Interfaceā, which is the āsound-cardā, providing multi-track recording.
As for the Built-In-Audio Player, I donāt know what this exactly is in the table. AFAIK both units come with an USB interface to plug in USB thumb drives to make live recordings directly from the live show. This is an addition to the computer interface.
BTW AFAIK the Qu16 provides a sampling rate of 48 kHz, the SQ5 96 kHz
There is always a compromise 
I would just not record evety voice solo, but group like the perc stuff to 12bus, and take toms, snare and kick extra. Voila, only 5 inpits used instead of 12 and still a lot of flexibility for the mixing gained.
If you really need more, thereās the qu24 or 32 available.
Does this mean that the expanded inputs will not have dedicated faders,eqs etc?
I record in my DAW at 44.1KHzā¦would higher sample rates effect me?
Hi again Augenadler
What makes you go for the QU series instead of the SQ?
Price.
The Qu has everything one needs, plus multitracking to USB stick so no computer needed for recording while jamming. Just press record and go. No setting up, just start.
Sure the SQ5 is awesome, but do you need that? 2500 is a lot of money. Would buy more synths instead. 
Just read: the sq5 also has the MTK option.
So its just the additional money.
thats true im really falling in love with hardware. As for multitracking to USB, well thats not something im really thinking about doing as i like to mix everything nicely in my DAW. But then again I can also bounce everything to my DAW from the USBā¦Hmmm
Thats exactly it. You can then easily rransfer the recording to your DAW and go.
Jusr decide if 16 Ins are enough for you.
I currently have
OT 2 channels
AR 5 channels
MD 2 channels
Virus Ti 2 channels
connected to my Mackie1204 and have one channel free
With full setup I run out of channels.
With the 16 ins of the qu Iād be perfwctly fine. And always able to use the aux returns as additional ins, though.
Small but expandable boards do not have a physical fader for each channel, be it input, output, or buss. They have pages, which can be swapped providing input-channels 1-16, input-channels 17-32, the various busses and so forth. Depending on the unit, there is a set of buttons to switch between the pages. Some boards even have small displays on each fader, LCD scribble-strips, which show the actual status. Itās a compromise not to having some meters of board space in the studio.
No worry, most digital boards can be used at this sampling rate too. If you are interested, you should check out, whether the inputs of the board can run at 96 kHz and simultaneously the digital interface to the computer can still transmit at 44.1 kHz.
As @Augenadler has mentioned, the SQ5 could be an overshot. Some guys here in the forum use the Qu-Pac and seem to be very happy with it. If you donāt need faders, check it out. You can extend the Qu-Pac later up to 32 channels. I wonder, why A&H made the Qu16 and the Qu24 not extendable. AFAIK the Qu-Pac is internally very similar to the Qu32, but comes in a rack mountable package.
I agree for a live situation and beeing my own mixing engineer. Itās efficient and less weight to carry around.
But in the studio I see some benefit to record particularly synth voices on separate channels. From my experience some voices tend to built up quite interesting resonances at certain frequencies. This is different for Moogs, Oberheims, ARPs etc. Itās sometimes only some notes of the song, where the one or the other voice generates unpleasent peaks every now and then. This is hard to fix in a mix with other timbres, but is quite easy, if the voice is isolated in itās own track.
So whats your final verdict between the Qu-24 and the SQ5?