contemporary mixing consoles

[_brian_]

Are there much between them? I'm on the lookout for a new mixer with more channels & busses. I currently have a mackie 1402 vlz pro and have been very surprised with the quality of the unit. The features, build and even preamps seem relativley good as well. What I'm wondering now is in comparison to earlier mixers when bad & good sound quality could actually be *heard* in a more definite way, with the amount of high-end features cheaper desks are now intigrating should you really worry about buying a more... cost effective mixer? For example the yamaha MG206C is packed full of features - and gimicks (one knob compression ) but really, with 16 mic ips (12 inserts), 3 band sweepable eq, 4 busses & 4 aux sends for £359 does it still occupy the same virtual junk yard that we instinctavley have to turn our noses up at? The only exception to this (in my opinion) would be behringer, again the desk was bearable. But the preamps were god awful.

Thoughts?

 

[pipelineaudio]

Its a hard comparison. The way tech has worked out, and the lowering in standards in general, you are comparing say, houses to bicycles. One cost a LOT to make, one not so much.

Most of the modern IC based mic pre's and signal paths found on cheap gear is pretty damn good! Is it worth paying ten times as much for a bit of improvement? Maybe, maybe not.

Sideways moves on budget gear (consoles under say 50k$ for the most part) are just that: sideways moves

 

[TexRoadkill]

I agree with Pipe to an extent. There is definately a noticeable difference between cheap and really cheap. A small mackie mixer will sound obviously better then a cheapo behringer or sampson.

As a good rule of thumb (with a few obvious exceptions) if it costs less then $300 it's probably complete crap.