Mackie 24/8-bus vs Mackie SR24/4

[ChuckU]

Looking to upgrade from a pair of small Mackie VLZ's (a 1402 and a 1202).
I'm using them right now for their pres and a bit of routing to headphones and studio monitors.

Is the SR 24/4 a good upgrade here, or is it too much a live board?
Are the pres the same on the SR as the 8-Bus?

I'm also attracted by the 8-bus's direct outs rather than using inserts to get a discrete signal path. Does the SR have direct outs?

There's a huge difference in price, so I'm bracing for some passionate opinions.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

The SR boards are about 2/3rds the size of an 8-bus -- and it is really geared towards live-sound....

Personally, from what I saw, I didn't care for it.... doesn't even look as solid as the 8-buss units........ OTOH, I haven't tried it for sound, but there's going to be a reason it's less than the cost of the 8-buss boards.......

 

[Light]

Assuming all other factors are equal (sound, reliability, etc., which I can not say as I have very little experience with either), the 8-buss is a much more useful board functionally, to my mind. The in-line design (well, sort of) is familiar to me from large format consoles, and gives you a great deal more flexibility for routing during mixing. How ever, if you are only looking for mic pres and routing to monitors and headphones, I don't know that the added complexity and versatility of the in-line design is really worth the time. If you are going to be using the console for mixing, I would definitely want the eight buss (of the two).


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

 

[ChuckU]

Thanks for the input, guys.
I wonder if anyone can confirm the issue of direct outs. The sales person at GC claimed that the 8-bus had direct outs for each channel that did not bypass the channel strip as inserts do. I would find this quite useful and would not be surprised if the SR boards did not given that they are primarily for live use.
However, I'm thinking an SR/24 might still be an upgrade from my current 1202 and 1402 setup.

I may have to go to the Mackie website and download a couple of PDF's.

 

[regebro]

The 8-bus do indeed have both inserts and direct outs.

I don't have an 8-bus, but I think it is safe to assume that the direct out do not bypass the channels strip, because that would be weird.