I don't really have a basis for comparison to the Roland or Yamaha that you mentioned, but I have a vf-16 and it works well for me. The effects aren't great but that's not what I was looking for in a unit anyway. I just like the fact that it's an affordable mixer/multitracker with phantom power. Digital is so convenient and you really can't beat the price. I don't have any technical complaints so far, but as I mentioned before, I don't have anything else to compare to except a POS Fostex x-34 that I had for a couple of years. Digital is just so easy for bouncing and editing. You can practically do as many takes of a track as you want, save them all (well like 99 at least) as virtual tracks and use the one you think sounds best for your mixdown. Copying, pasting, all that is just such a simple thing in the digital domain. And of the digital units that I looked at, the vf-16 won out for me because it has phamtom power and a respectable number of tracks and inputs for the nice price. I got mine of eBay ten months ago for like $800 bucks brand new. And I just saw one on eBay today that was at $500 with one bid and a day left on the auction. Anyway, it's been a great deal for me. If you are recording a bunch of inputs with a sizable band or something you might run into limitations but if it's just you or a couple of people at a time, it'll do nicely. Good luck.
Oh...one thing...the manual sort of blows...its kind of like those foreign ads in english that Leno makes fun of sometimes on the Tonight Show, only its not all that funny. I get a lot more useful information off this site than from the manual.
