The Soundcraft Compact Stagebox offers a high density of I/O connections in only 4U of rack space. The modular unit is fully configurable but is offered with a standard configuration of 32 mic/line inputs, 8 line outputs, 8 channels of AES/EBU outputs and 2 expansion slots for standard Studer D21m I/O cards. The D21m is the I/O architecture for Studer as well as Soundcraft digital mixing systems and allows connection to most popular digital formats, including CobraNet, AVIOM A-Net 16, Ethersound, ADAT and RockNet.
As well as the flexibility of the D21m option card interface, the Compact Stagebox also uses the same Mic/line I/O modules as found in the Soundcraft Vi1 console, and as a result it is possible to move or share modules between console and stagebox, should a different configuration of I/O be required on either the Vi1 or the Stagebox. For example, the 8 line out/AES output card from the Stagebox could be fitted to the Vi1 console in place of a 16ch line output card.