Mixers for recording vs. live performance

tappmusic

New member
When shopping for a mixer, I noticed that the zzounds search has powered mixers under live performance and the unpowered mixers under recording. Is there a real difference in the sound quality and performance when using either type?

I'm building my recording studio and would like to make a smart purchase early on. Please help me understand the pros and cons of considering one over the other. Thanks!
 
Usually you will have better quality with an unpowered mixer and a seperate power amp or powered speakers. Powered mixers are a bit of a compromise for the sake of convenience in live situations.
 
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true true.

One assumption/generalization i may add is that in some cases (but not all) there may not be much point in buying a powered mixer if you are not going to power anything. I mean if you don not need loudspeakers or monitors or anything then you could maybe save money by not having to buy the built in power amp.

I got a question though, can you run headphones off of an unpowered mixer? also if you wanted to run monitors or whatever from an unpowered mixer how would you do this? you would use powered monitors/speakers right? or could you hook up an external power amp?
 
Most powered mixers, even "nice" ones, are usually horribly noisy for starters... Then, they usually don't have direct outs for recording anyway. Couple that with the durable but even noisier preamps, and you've got yourself... Noise!

Not that I don't love them for small live situations... That's what they're made for, and pretty much all they're good for IMO.

John Scrip - www.massivemastering.com
 
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