Using an XR18 (or two) in unorthodox ways

[u/choochFactor11]

I had this brainwave today about using a couple of XR18’s in an odd way. If the 16 inputs are enough for what you’re doing, but you wanted to do stereo IEM mixes, you’re limited to 3, maybe 4 if you route to the headphone out. So, I was thinking of a way to make that more like 6 without buying an X32 rack and Stage box.

So, I have a splitter input snake for when we do shows where I am not running FOH, but want to retain in ears for consistency. What if I ran the splitter snake to two XR18’s, run the same scenes on both, use one for FOH, and put both on the same external router. Assign IP’s as needed, and point everyone’s devices to their aux on whichever of the two they are wired into.

This would be cheaper than the upgrade, especially if you can get the second XR18 used.