Showtec Creator 1024 Pro

Ahem... You are calling me out as a fanboy? You've just joined a forum at 1am to post that!

Just one example from the Avo forum -
http://forum.avolites.com/viewtopic.php?t=3255

Plenty of other tales of Titan woes. No false advice. We own 8 Quartz, 4 Tiger touch, 2 pearl experts and are about to buy a pair of Arenas, we've stocked Avo desks since 1994, so have a little experience of them

It wouldn't be fair to compare MQ 40 with the Quartz. MQ 40 is a seriously limited version of the MQ60 - the 40 only has four DMX outputs and no networking or artnet capabilities. It's a bit of an oddity, the only people I know who have bought the 40 are hire co's who wanted a desk to replace old school pearls in their desk range with something newer, if you were buying a desk for yourself why would you buy a seriously limited version? I find the 60 fiddly to operate compared to the full size desk or the PC or maxi wings. (Large hands / Fat fingered)

The Quartz is pretty much a Titan mobile with a computer and touch screen built in, I don't get on at all with the Titan mobile faders, key size or layout. The screen is at a fixed angle that makes the desk very bulky, deeper than flying hand luggage size. There has been a lot of issues with the way Titan licensing works, several people I know have been left with dead desks hours before their show. The avo wings don't work with all of their desks, so a tiger wing won't work with a Quartz, and a sapphire wing won't work with a tiger or Quartz.

That's the physical desk negatives, but it's all about how you get on with the software, both of which you can check out for free / cheap with the single universe dongles.

At £1.5k new I'd rather have a second hand pearl tiger, or even better a chamsys PC wing, however if it was £200 I'd give it a punt. If he plans on running any LED's then the chamsys wins hands down, the basics can be learnt with just the free software and a £12 dongle.