Allen & Heath DX168 Portable Stagebox, 16 XLR In / 8 XLR Out, 96kHz

Allen & Heath DX168: A Portable 16x8 Digital Snake

The Allen & Heath DX168 is a portable stagebox that puts 16 remote-controlled mic/line inputs and 8 line outputs on stage and links them to the console over a single Cat5e cable. It is the go-anywhere member of the DX family, built for the reality that most stages are set and struck under time pressure by people carrying gear across a car park. Where an analogue multicore is heavy, fragile and slow to run, the DX168 collapses all of that into one thin cable an assistant can deploy in seconds. A rugged chassis and carry handle mean it is meant to be picked up, moved and reused rather than installed and forgotten. For rental, education and worship rigs, it is often the most-traveled box in the system.

Sixteen Remote Preamps and Eight Outputs

Inside are 16 genuine Allen & Heath mic/line preamps, each remotely controlled from the console so gain and +48V phantom are set from the mixing surface, not the box. Per-channel phantom indicators on the DX168 still show status locally, which speeds line checks when the engineer and the stage tech are talking over comms. Eight balanced XLR line outputs at +4dBu handle stage monitors, side-fills or a recording split without a second box. That 16-in, 8-out balance is deliberately sized for the small-to-mid gigs these systems play most often. It is enough I/O for a full band plus monitors from a single, liftable unit.

One Cable, 328 Feet, 96 kHz

The DX168 carries everything over DX Link on a single Cat5e run up to 328 ft (100 m), converting at 96 kHz for wide bandwidth and low latency. That single-cable approach is transformative on load-in: instead of flaking out a heavy copper snake and worrying about a crushed channel, you run one lightweight cable from stage to the rack and you are done. The locking etherCON connector keeps the link secure underfoot, and the box can daisy-chain from an upstream DX expander when a rig needs more inputs than one unit provides. Because DX Link is a dedicated point-to-point transport, its timing is consistent show after show. The result is faster setup, less weight in the truck and one fewer thing to fail.

Why a Portable Stagebox Changes Load-In

The practical difference the DX168 makes shows up in the first thirty minutes of every gig. A traditional analogue snake is a heavy, stiff drum of copper that two people wrestle across a stage, and a single crushed or corroded channel can take an input down mid-show. Swapping it for one lightweight Cat5e cable means the stage-to-rack link is run and dressed in the time it used to take just to position the snake head. That reclaimed time goes into soundcheck and troubleshooting rather than cable management. For crews working multiple rooms in a day, or volunteers with a narrow setup window, the DX168 turns the most tedious part of load-in into a non-event.

Rugged Enough for the Truck and the Volunteer

The DX168 is built as a genuinely portable box, with a rugged chassis and an integrated carry handle that invite it to be picked up and moved rather than babied. That toughness matters because a portable stagebox lives a harder life than an installed one, riding in trucks, sliding across risers and getting set up by whoever is available that day. The remote-controlled preamps mean a less-experienced operator cannot misconfigure the box at the stage, since gain and phantom are set from the console by the engineer. Per-channel phantom indicators still give a local sanity check during line-up. It is designed so that both a seasoned touring tech and a weekend volunteer can deploy it successfully.

Built to Travel Across dLive, Avantis, SQ and AHM

A built-in universal 100-240V power supply means the DX168 works anywhere in the world from a standard IEC lead, with no external brick to lose. It connects to dLive, Avantis, SQ and AHM systems alike, so a rental house can send the same stagebox out with whatever A&H console a client books. For a house of worship, it turns a portable console into a real 16-channel stage rig that volunteers can set up reliably each week. Educators use it to teach signal flow without the intimidation of a copper multicore. Wherever a portable, dependable stage I/O box is needed, the DX168 is the one that gets carried in first.