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Teenage Engineering TX-6

Teenage Engineering returns with a mixer you can keep in your back pocket.

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We've loved pretty much everything Swedish Teenage Engineering has sent us, and for good reason. Despite the high price tag, each and every product is designed and manufactured with such a clear intention from the sender that it's hard not to fall for the combination of crystal clear functionality and attractive materials and shapes. These are products that create a clear "want" in a consumer, no doubt about it, and should you find a specific use case for a Teenage Engineering product, you'll get something that's damn well put together. "The best of both worlds", as Hannah would say.

Which brings us naturally to the TX-6, a small mixer that truly gives you all the functionality you'd expect from a smaller console from a brand like Røde, but so compact it fits in a back pocket and weighs less than an iPhone 16.

The design itself is so compact that it's downright hard to comprehend. It's smaller than even the smallest modern smartphones, and weighs less too. It's made from a single piece of CNC aluminium with 2K Molding, and on the back, just like the TP-7, you'll find stunning leather, this time black, which still adds something eerily tactile and warm to what could otherwise easily be called a slightly cool whole. The point is that everything from the small display with basic presets to the individual six inputs, it all responds wonderfully to touch and movement, and it's all the more evident that Teenage Engineering's manufacturing tolerance is top notch.

Teenage Engineering TX-6

As we said, this is a tiny portable mixer whose battery can handle about eight hours of use, which aligns well with our own tests. With this, you can record 44.1/48KHz or 24-bit on its own memory via six individual stereo channels. In addition, there are a number of other features, such as Bluetooth LE support for other wireless MIDI devices, MFI compatibility with iOS and even a synthesiser.

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The six stereo inputs can be split into mono and accessed via jack ports on the top. It must be said that some individual jack inputs, depending on how the cables are physically designed, will have difficulty lining up because the TX-6 is so small. But this only applies if you absolutely need to use all six. Underneath, there are three analogue inputs, a large-sized main jack input, and mini-jack for AUX. There's also USB-C, making it possible to use the TX-6 as an audio interface for something as basic as a podcast recording in the field.

The sound is fantastic, there's no other word for it, and there's no sign that the sound is compromised by either the battery as the central power source or the size of the device. However, it must be said that while the small display is brilliant for giving you concrete feedback on peaking, gain and other audio settings that are quite critical for stabilising usable sound levels and balancing, it is so small that doing actual professional or semi-professional work with the TX-6 can be slightly frustrating. There's simply too little space here, which is quite funny because the individual dials don't feel too small. In fact, nothing else on the TX-6 feels compromised by the size besides the aforementioned stereo inputs' proximity to each other and this tiny display.

Teenage Engineering TX-6

For musicians this will probably be a dealbreaker, as granular tweaking of sound levels on the fly becomes pretty crucial, but as a podcast producer, or as a field recorder mixer of sorts, this is the ultimate tool. It would have been nice if it was a little cheaper, but then again, this is such a specific tool that the right customer might just fall in love with the combination of functionality, dexterity and aesthetics. But even with all that in mind, £1,049 is a bit of a pill to swallow. Perhaps an updated version could place a more horizontal display across the width of the device, giving the user a little more room for customisation, and it would be worth it.

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08 Gamereactor UK
8 / 10
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