Yamaha QL5 Digital Mixer

The QL5 is Yamaha's larger QL-series console, and it lives at front-of-house — not in a rack. It's a 64-input digital desk that anchors mid-size and large touring and theater productions, sitting squarely in the QL/CL ecosystem alongside Yamaha's Rio and Tio stage boxes. If you're building out a Dante-native audio network for a touring show, a theatrical run, or a fixed installation where FOH needs serious horsepower without stepping up to the full CL series, this is the console that conversation tends to land on.

The two EtherCon Dante ports — primary and secondary — carry 64 channels each, which means your stage box connectivity, monitor splits, and recording feeds can all live on the network with proper redundancy in place. The eight local analog mic inputs give you a fallback or a convenient patch point for local sources at the console, and the eight Omni outputs let you drive amplifiers, delay stacks, or processing directly without requiring a separate analog output box. At 200 watts nominal draw and 627mm deep, this desk needs a real table and a real power circuit — plan your cable runs and weight distribution on the FOH riser accordingly at load-in.

If you're running a mid-size touring rig or a theater house where Yamaha gear is already in the ecosystem, the QL5 is a proven fit and operators will hit the ground running. If your show is smaller and 64 inputs is more console than your rider requires, the QL1 covers the same ecosystem at a lower channel count and price point. If you're building a pure IEM or monitor rig and need a console to live in a rack rather than on a tabletop, this isn't the tool — look at a rack-mounted DSP or a smaller dedicated monitor desk instead.