thomas_cansing. . . I'm afraid I do not have the expertise to recommend other brands. I'm only reporting what my negative experience has been when dealing with Alesis. The problem we face as musicians seeking to do our own recording on a budget in between working a regular job to pay the bills is that we do not have mountains of cash lying around to do A-B testing between Alesis/Behringer/Nady/Samson/Phonics and whatever other inexpensive brands and even more expensive brands are out there. Like I said in my previous post, so far I've had good results ("good" meaning that I've been satisfied with them), but the fact that Alesis has a reputation for uneven quality control and downright rude (if not hostile) technical support staff when one encounters problems are big strikes against them. I also recognize that other people may have had positive experiences with technical support that leads them to the opposite opinion of Alesis' tech support. If you have access to local dealers who will allow you the opportunity to field test equipment you are considering buying, deal with them. Talk to other musicians in your area who have home studios and find out what they are using. As I said, read the reviews on the websites maintained by dealers like MF, AMS, SamAsh, ZZounds, and others.
Also check out the gear forums for mics and rack equipment on this website. There are a lot of helpful threads there--with good and bad reports of equipment. Just be forewarned (if you haven't encountered it yet on this site) that there are some of what I call "equipment snobs" who, at the very mention of words like "Alesis" or "Behringer" or "Nady," will heap abuse on anyone who dares to ask if such makes of equipment are even worth looking at.
Sorry if this sounds sort of preachy (my wife says its one of my worst faults) and is short on specific brand recommendations, but I can only write from experience and I'm not going to suggest checking out something I've never used--it wouldn't be honest or respectful to you.
