Alesis vs. Mackie

[Cult_Status02]

I didn't want to ask this in the Alesis area because I thought I might get a biased oppinion. With out further adue (sp!?):

I've had my eyes on the Mackie Onyx 1620 Mixer with optional firewire card for the last 2 weeks or so. And then I get my musician's friend mag and they rant about the Alesis MultiMix 16 Firewire saying how good it is.

I realize that the Mackie with firewire comes out to about $1179, and the Alesis comes to $600 (sale), but which has the best pre amps?

I really like all of the different qualities of the Mackie, such as the talkback mic and the great preamps (I hear), but I know nothing about the Alesis Multimix. Will the Multimix give me the great quality I expect from the Mackie, but at a cheaper price? One of these 2 mixers will be the center of my studio, and, as some of you may experience, when you get your heart set on one piece of equipment and then you find out about a competitor, it's hard to not have a biased oppinion about the first piece of equipment.

So:

I ask can someone with some knowlege on these two pieces of equipment please steer me in the best direction? Not the best value per se, but the best one. I am prepared (and planned on it, until today) to spend the money on the Mackie if it has better quality.

Thanks in advance for any input.

 

[Treeline]

I think you answered your own question - Is the Alesis as good as the Mackie but one half the price? No - if they were equivalent mixers Mackie would push the market harder or Alesis couldn't afford to sell them so cheap. Both products are made in China, so the Chinese / American labor issue isn't really in play. I can guarantee that the Onyx preamps will be far better than the Alesis. Having said that, the Alesis gets you into the game for a lot less money up front.

Look at user reviews of the Alesis before buying. I've seen great reviews of it as a live mixer and consistent complaints that there were problems with the firewire or its drivers. However, that could be a single purchaser who was pissed and decided to do a little online warfare.

I believe the Alesis may be available with USB2 interfaces as well. At least the smaller ones are.

There's a hidden potential issue with firewire: Microsoft bolloxed up the firewire transfer rate when it released Service Pack 2 for Windows XP. There is a specific online patch you can download that does a hotfix, but it is not in the ordinary bunch of updates you might encounter. If you get on the Microsoft site, do a search for "firewire" and you should find it. The patch ID number ends in "222."

My Onyx didn't pass a firewire audio signal no matter what I did; I was about ready to come to terms with the idea of a hardware problem when I learned of this patch. Downloaded the patch and all worked seamlessly from then on. That's a bit counterintuitive for my tastes. I bet Mackie got a few nasty calls over that one and it has nothing whatever to do with them - it was yet another Bill Gates adventure.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Of the two twin evil bastards who made the Mackie/ADAT project studio revolution the forerunner of the Consewrvatory/Mixmag/"Pro"Tools studio,

I like mackie better

Those mackie circuits have some history, I say SOME before any winkie heads jump on my back.

Mackie likes to create products then totally drop support for them after a few years

Alesis LOVES to create products and drop support for them after 15 minutes

 

[Cult_Status02]

Thanks guys. I'm gonna go with the Mackie. In fact, after re-budgeting, I'm now going to be getting the 1640 instead of the 1620. I feel I'll get much more use out of the 16 XLR than I would just the 8 on the 1620.
Thanks again guys for the help.