ivory 5001 v mackie mixer

[thomaswomas]

i'm currently in the process of improving the preamps in my studio setup. i've got an alesis multimix fw16 for preamps at the moment. i've been getting pretty decent results with it but obviously they're not great. so i've decided to upgrade.

the tl audio ivory 5001 has been looking like the best bet in my price range up until now. but i've recently seen a second hand mackie SR24/4 VLZ PRO mixer for sale for less than half the price of the tl audio. which means i could save a bit of money for a new mic maybe.

so which should i go for? i've heard good things about the preamps in mackie desks. has anyone had experience with either of the items i'm interested? i'd really appreciate some good advice on this

thanks

[Kevin Deschwazi]

Funny, I've heard lots of bad things about Mackie (or "wackie") pres but I should qualify that by saying I've never used a mackie desk for recording myself. People seem to like the Onyx pres.

My humble opinion of the TL Audio ivory stuff is that it's massively overpriced. Not terrible sounding or anything but very ordinary considering what they're asking. (You know it's not 'real' valve gear right?). I had a 5050 (mic pre and compressor) for a while and was delighted when somebody gave me £200 odd for it on ebay.

£500 for 4 channels of pres? I'd get my soldering iron out and build some JLM Audio baby animals (in fact I did). Or you could do a lot worse than buying two M Audio DMP-3s at £100 a pop. Spend the other £300 on acoustic treatment, a nice new mic or an evening of crack and whores.