Personal monitor mixers let each performer dial their own in-ear mix from a small box on stage. The dirty secret of “Aviom vs P16 vs ME vs Klang” isn’t which one sounds best — they all sound fine. The real decision is the network they run on and how it talks to your console. This guide walks through the transports and gives you a decision tree by band size.

What a personal mixer actually changes

Without a personal mixer, every musician’s IEM mix is built at the console, on dedicated aux sends. The drummer says “more bass” and the monitor engineer adjusts Aux 1. That works fine for 4 musicians and one engineer.

With a personal mixer, the console sends a fixed set of stems to the stage over a single network cable (kick, snare, bass, vocal 1, vocal 2, etc.). At each musician’s position, a small mixer takes those stems and lets the performer set their own balance and volume.

Two big wins:

Console-side simplicity. The monitor engineer sends one stream to stage instead of one aux per person.
Musician autonomy. The drummer can crank their kick without affecting anyone else. The vocalist can drop the band when they want to hear themselves breathe.

The transports compared

A-Net (Aviom)

Cable: Cat5/6, up to 500 ft per hop.
Channels per cable: 16 mono (or 8 stereo) on A-Net Pro16; 64 on A-Net Pro64.
Latency: ~880 µs (fixed, deterministic).
Console integration: via an A-Net output card (Avid, Yamaha, Allen & Heath, DiGiCo all offer one). Soundcraft and Midas use other transports — Aviom in those ecosystems means an external A-Net interface.
Strengths: bulletproof, deterministic, decades of touring deployment. The de-facto standard for large worship and broadcast environments.
Weaknesses: proprietary; expensive per-seat; locked into Aviom ecosystem; A-Net Pro16 only carries 16 channels max.

Ultranet / P16 (Behringer / Midas)

Cable: Cat5/6, up to 100 m per hop.
Channels per cable: 16 mono.
Latency: ~1 ms (deterministic).
Console integration: baked into X32, X32 Compact, X32 Producer, M32, M32R, X-Touch, Wing, MR18, XR18 (XR18 over A50). No card needed.
Strengths: cheapest per-seat by far (~$200 per P16M); plug-and-play on every Behringer/Midas console; great for worship teams on a budget.
Weaknesses: Behringer-ecosystem-only; cheaper-feeling hardware; max 16 channels.

ME (Allen & Heath)

Cable: Cat5/6, up to 100 m per hop.
Channels per cable: 40 (ME-1) / 16 (ME-500).
Latency: <1 ms.
Console integration: via A&H’s own MonitorMix / dSNAKE protocol on SQ, Avantis, dLive, Qu-series consoles. Third-party consoles via a Dante or MADI bridge.
Strengths: nicer hardware than P16; touchscreen on ME-1; “groups” feature for ducking groups of channels at once.
Weaknesses: A&H-leaning; more expensive than P16; ecosystem lock-in.

Klang (Dante-based, immersive)

Cable: Cat5e/6, Dante network.
Channels per cable: up to 64 per processor, more across the network.
Latency: Dante-typical 0.25–5 ms depending on network config.
Console integration: any Dante-equipped console (DiGiCo, Yamaha CL/QL/Rivage, Midas Wing, Behringer X32 with X-Dante card, Allen & Heath dLive, etc.).
Strengths: the only system that does immersive 3D positioning — each player puts each stem on a 3D field instead of just balancing levels. Higher channel count than legacy A-Net or Ultranet. Works with any Dante console.
Weaknesses: most expensive (~$3k/seat plus Dante infrastructure); takes ear-training time to get value from the 3D placement.

Waves StageGrid (worth mentioning)

Waves’ entry into personal monitoring runs over the same SoundGrid network as Waves servers. Strong if you already have a SoundGrid plugin host. Weak as a standalone choice.

Cabling and distances at a glance

All four transports run over Cat5e or Cat6.
Aviom A-Net: 500 ft per hop (longest single run).
Behringer Ultranet / A&H ME / Klang: 100 m per hop.
For longer runs (multi-zone churches, festivals), put a gigabit network switch (or A-Net daisy-chain box) in the middle.
PoE? Only Aviom and some A&H boxes are bus-powered. P16 and ME-1 want their own power supply at each seat.

If you’re on an X32 / M32

The X32 ecosystem makes the choice easy: Ultranet / P16 is built into every console output. A 5-piece band on P16 is $1,000 of personal mixers and one Cat5 cable from the console. Going Aviom or ME on an X32 means buying a third-party A-Net interface and re-routing audio.

For console-specific aux routing into IEMs, see Setting up stereo IEM mixes on an X32 / M32.

A decision tree by band size and budget

2–3 musicians on a small console

Skip personal mixers. Use aux sends straight from the console. The complexity isn’t worth it. Two stereo IEMs + two aux pairs at the console is fine.

4–6 musicians, worship, on an X32

Behringer P16. Cheap, native, ecosystem- matched. ~$1,200 for 6 seats plus one Cat5 from the rack to the stage.

4–6 musicians, touring, on an Allen & Heath SQ

Allen & Heath ME-1. Same ecosystem, nicer hardware, touchscreen.

6+ musicians, broadcast or arena-scale worship

Aviom. Bulletproof reputation. Or Klang if you’ve already invested in Dante and your players will get value from immersive placement.

Mixed ecosystem (DiGiCo + Yamaha + Avid)

Klang or Dante-bridged Aviom. Dante is the common language between every modern console.

Plan the rig

Lay the personal mixer system into your rig in IEM Rig. The wiring engine will route the console’s Ultranet / A-Net / Dante out to the mixer pickoff at the stage.

Personal Monitor Mixers Compared: Aviom, Behringer P16, Allen & Heath ME, Klang