Allen & Heath SQ5

I've already been mixing shows on larger D-Live and also the SQ6 & 7 at festivals in the last years. The compact SQ5 is equally good. With proper configuration I don't miss the extra soft-buttons and encoders of the larger consoles. For now, there is still a lot of display info missing anyway on the Soft Rotary displays.
The DEEP plug-in purchases do add another big cost to the desk, but the quality, especially compressors, is amazing. My Waves plug-ins now remain in the studio. I use an AR2412 stagebox with this as the complete package needs to remain compact. It always sounded good with the GLD, and even better with the SQ series.
The screen and strips are readable in daylight.
Another factor for the decision was that A&H support is excellent.
Bad points:
-I dislike the very limited 6 characters available for naming the channels. Even the X32 was much better here.
-When transferring Showfiles & Scenes on a laptop, they do not contain the file-names that are visible on the console display itself, so it's a lot of guesswork when transferring from offline editor. So much easier with Yamaha or M32 scenes.
-Additional DEEP-packs too expensive.

Very easy to use and great sound. I used it with the ME system with great result. The maximum 12 stereo Aux provided makes this console becomes a great tool for rehearsal which all my band members appraised a lot. Some people might decide on whether to get a QU or SQ, I think the budget paid definitely worth every penny.

The only cons I would say is that the patching of ME500 needs a bit of trial and error since the interface itself in the SQ is not very clear in terms of which channel is patched for stereo and which is for mono. The correct sequence of patching also matters in order to get absolute correct result. It takes some time to figure out what happened.

Everyone seems to ate the audio quality on this mixer, but I'm also going to mention it's power and versatility. It has features that so many mixers don't have, like the ability to send to Auxes from Groups.
It's I/O routing is also not only flexible but very intuitive. In conjunction with the Dante card you can get all 48 inputs out of it, plus groups to multitrack, or other equipment on the Dante network. Not only that but it also has a Tieline facility where you can, for instance take someone's talkback feed into a back panel input and patch it to the DX 168 without using one of the 48 channels.
Timecode is another think that you could patch into the back panel and have it go out on the Dante card without using a mixer channel. The further that I've got into setting it up for s TV recording job, the more impressed I am with the whole setup.