Allen & Heath ME-500 Personal Mixer
Allen & Heath·Model ME-500·allen-heath-me500
Photos
Manufacturer product photography — the drawn faceplate above stays true to panel layout; these show the hardware itself.
About the Allen & Heath ME-500
The Allen & Heath ME-500 is a compact personal mixer that pairs with A&H consoles via Monitor Mixer or M-Series mode. Sixteen stereo groups, sliders for level, and per-channel pan give performers full control of their monitor mix on stage. A common pickup for in-ear setups in churches and theaters running A&H consoles.
The ME-500 is Allen & Heath's answer to the oldest monitor-world argument: musicians want control of their own mix, and monitor engineers want them to have exactly as much control as they can handle. Sixteen one-touch keys, each mapped to a channel or stereo group arriving over the Cat5Standard network cable grades. In an audio rig one cheap Cat5e run can replace a 48-channel copper snake; AES50 wants it shielded. snakeA multicore cable bundling many channels into one stage-to-console run. A sub-snake collects one corner of the stage into a drop box., with level and a master — enough agency for a performer to fix 'more me' themselves, not enough surface to destroy a mix mid-song.
It's happiest inside the A&H ecosystem, fed from an SQ or dLive over the ME-U hub or straight from a console's monitor busA path where multiple channels sum into one signal — mixes, groups, and mains are all buses. A 25-bus console can build 25 blends at once. structure, with the second RJ45 daisy-chaining to the next unit down the line — one Cat5Standard network cable grades. In an audio rig one cheap Cat5e run can replace a 48-channel copper snake; AES50 wants it shielded. run threading a whole stage of them. The stereo quarter-inch outputs drive wired ears or a wedgeA floor monitor speaker angled up at the performer — the thing IEMs replace, and the thing you fall back on when they die. amp directly, and when fed from an ME-U hub the same Cat5 that carries audio carries power, which is one less wall-wart per performer to lose.
For rig planning the choice is usually ME-500 versus the bigger ME-1, or versus Behringer's P16 system on mixed-brand rigs. The ME-500's sixteen keys cover a band's worth of stemsSub-mixes of a session grouped by instrument (drums, keys, vocals) — how playback rigs run tracks with live control over each group. cleanly; if your performers genuinely mix — EQ, pans, per-channel rides — the ME-1's screen and 40 sources justify the step up.
In the rack
- Feed from an ME-U hub for power-over-Cat5Standard network cable grades. In an audio rig one cheap Cat5e run can replace a 48-channel copper snake; AES50 wants it shielded. — no local supplies taped under mic stands.
- Daisy-chain the second RJ45 to the next mixer; home-run only where a chain failure would take out multiple performers.
- Send stemsSub-mixes of a session grouped by instrument (drums, keys, vocals) — how playback rigs run tracks with live control over each group., not raw channels — sixteen well-chosen groups beat sixteen arbitrary inputs.
Allen & Heath ME-series personal mixer with 16 stereo groups.
I/O Ports (4)
| Port | Connector | Direction | Signal | Channels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cat5e In | RJ45 | input | digital audio | — |
| Cat5e Thru | RJ45 | output | digital audio | — |
| Headphone Out (1/4") | TRS QUARTER | output | analog audio | — |
| Line Out (1/4") | TRS QUARTER | output | analog audio | — |
Deciding between two?
Rack space, watts, weight and every connector, side by side.
Related gear
Related articles
Guides from our library that cover planning around personal mixer gear.
What an IEM rig actually is, the components that go into one, and how to plan your first one without overspending or blowing a circuit.
A plain-English plan for bands switching from floor wedges to in-ear monitors — what to buy, what to expect at the first rehearsal, and how to not hate it.
Step-by-step: linking aux buses into stereo pairs, pre-fader vs post-fader, routing buses to Ultranet vs physical XLRs vs AES50, and adding a bus-level limiter.
Aviom A-Net vs Behringer Ultranet vs Allen & Heath ME vs Klang Dante — the systems-thinking comparison, not the shopping list. Cabling, distances, console integration, and a decision tree.