Kaymir wrote:MIDAS is very nice..but more devoted to live sound. but midas is a reall good brand. the venice series is nice.
Yeah, they're marketed as live consoles. But the sound is awesome, and especially the EQ is in a different league from the Mackie, VERY sweet. Plus construction standards are top-grade (ALPS faders and nutted ALPS pots throughout...) The features/routing suit my way of working perfectly. So the desk being billed as a 'live' desk doesn't bother me at all - it's still one of the best desks in it's price range.... I picked mine up today.
That Allen&Heath on eBay: yeah, that was one of my reccomendations as well. Very well built and A&H always has really good EQ. No subgroups though, but they also make a 10 mono 4 stereo, 4 group version I believe. Check
www.allen-heath.com .
The older mackies are very decent mixers, if a little 'plain'. Used all over the world, they're affordable, and they have OK (not great) built quality. I didn't like the EQ much though; I even preffered the EQ of small older Spirit (folio series) mixers.
I haven't heard the Mackie Onyx series myself, but the EQ on it is supposed to be a big improvement on the previous series, and it has 2 sweepable mids and a HW bypass button now. Should be pretty decent, but listen for yourself. There is also an 8-buss Onyx series just released, looking really good. Check the Mackie site.
By the way, my first mixer was a Spirit Folio Notepad, then I got a Spirit Folio SX, then a Mackie SR24-4, then a Mackie SR24-4vlzPRO, and now the Midas Venice 240. I've used Behringer and D&R (good, older Dutch mixers) in friends's studio's, among others.
