and others. S6L Avid released its new flagship VENUE | S6L live sound system in 2015, which effectively replaced earlier D-Show and Profile systems at the top of its live sound range. Although S6L runs VENUE software like earlier systems, it features a new control surface that integrates multiple touch screens and significantly more knobs for faster navigation and editing of parameters than older VENUE systems. S6L also offers much greater processing power, supporting over 300 processing channels and up to 200 plug-in slots. Although its Stage 64 I/O racks borrow from the mechanical design of its predecessors, the I/O was completely redesigned with new high performance preamps and a 96 kHz audio path throughout the system. The S6L system consists of an S6L control surface (with either 16, 24, or 32 faders), an E6L processing engine, and up to three Stage 64 I/O racks (for up to 192 physical inputs). Like S3L-X, S6L is built on an Ethernet AVB architecture that supports sharing I/O between multiple systems using Avid's True Gain technology (over both Cat5e and fiber cabling). In addition to Ethernet AVB, S6L also supports a new generation of VENUE option cards, including the DNT-192 Dante Card and the MADI-192 MADI Card. Connectivity with Pro Tools is also facilitated over the Ethernet AVB network, with support for up to 128 channels of recording and playback over a single Cat5e cable. S6L natively runs onboard AAX DSP plug-ins from both Avid and 3rd party developers like McDSP, Sonnox and others, while also supporting Waves SoundGrid systems over MADI. Common features All Avid consoles create VENUE show files that are inter-compatible. However, due to the architectural differences between systems and numbers of inputs and outputs supported, some files may require edits to fit a new system. While D-Show, Profile, Mix Rack, and SC48 consoles run Windows XP Embedded and use the same TDM plugin architecture as Pro Tools HD, S3L-X uses Avid's newer HDX chipset for its mixing and AAX DSP plug-in processing. The new VENUE | S6L system features a dual engine design that uses a real-time operating system for its core mixing functionality and HDX cards for all onboard AAX DSP plug-in processing. The consoles are all compatible with Pro Tools for recording directly off the console with one cable, and also to enable the 'Virtual Soundcheck' feature, where a recording is played back through the inputs, in