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Greetings all! New to the board. I'm setting up a home studio (on a budget) in my house and am wondering about which mixing board I should purchase. I'm looking for something decent in the price range of $600-$700 used. Some boards I have been looking at so far include the MACKIE 1604 VLZ PRO, the BEHRINGER MX2442A, and 3842A. Are the preamps on the MACKIE far superior to Behringer's preamps, or is there a neglible difference between the two companies? Are there other boards in that price range I may be overlooking? 16 channels will work, although 24 might be better. As far as recorders I have a Teac 80-8 (1/2" tape) and a Tascam 238 (8 track cassette rackmount deal, for demoing tracks). Any advice is greatly appreciated.
thanks,
Brian

somniferum wrote:Greetings all! New to the board. I'm setting up a home studio (on a budget) in my house and am wondering about which mixing board I should purchase. I'm looking for something decent in the price range of $600-$700 used. Some boards I have been looking at so far include the MACKIE 1604 VLZ PRO, the BEHRINGER MX2442A, and 3842A. Are the preamps on the MACKIE far superior to Behringer's preamps, or is there a neglible difference between the two companies? Are there other boards in that price range I may be overlooking? 16 channels will work, although 24 might be better. As far as recorders I have a Teac 80-8 (1/2" tape) and a Tascam 238 (8 track cassette rackmount deal, for demoing tracks). Any advice is greatly appreciated.
thanks,
Brian

The Behringer UB series mic pres are about the same as the VLZ pro Mackies. That is to say that they both are nothing to get excited about. I have never heard the MX series pres so I have no idea. No question the Mackie is a higher quality board in term of construction/durability.

Soundcraft, Tascam, and Yamaha all make for a good used find as well. Try looking into maybe a Tascam M312 or M512. I have a 512 myself and think it's a pretty decent and flexible. I like the fact that it's a balanced output board and has individual phantom power switches on all the channels. I think I paid $4or 500.00 for it and have been pleased. I should mention that the 512 is 12x8, so maybe not enough for what you want to do. I think the M520 is 20x8. I have seen both of these on ebay as well as at a Music go round recently.

Good luck.

I'm really happy with my Allen and Heath WZ16:2. I liked it much better than the Mackie. 16 balanced outs with nice pre's and eqs. The down side? No phase reverse or seperate phantom power per channel. Oh well, still worth a look.

Balanced outputs really aren't necessary for home board line-level I/O's unless you know you're going to run 20'+ lines.

In most applications where you're driving a line level signal less than 20-25' an unbalanced signal may actually be preferable. By eliminating a balanced line-level I/O, you eliminate an additional gain stage or transformer, which can add noise and other non-linearities to your signal.

Just make sure you use good cables, properly terminated, and correctly pinned to your balanced load.

The main reason most "pro level" gear is balanced is the anticipation that you'll be driving signals over greater distances in a pro setting, and the consumer's expectation that i/o's be balanced.

Cheers,

search ebay for a soundcraft 200b. Decent, nothing too special, but solid.
-n

yeah, for $600-700, you should be able to run across a nice older Soundcraft 200 or similar board. Do a few ebay searches for Studiomaster's or maybe even some of the Yamaha PM series.
later,
m

i got a Soundcraft 800B (16/8/2) a couple months ago, on ebay, for $630. i've been keeping my eyes peeled for similar opportunities on ebay, and there haven't been many, if any. there are way more 200B's going through there, and sometimes rather cheap. but it is possible to get an 800B if your timing is right. i love the one i got.

also, don't forget about shipping charges if you're buying a mixer on ebay. i ended up spending 18 hours driving and $130 on gas, rather than get mine shipped at a cost of over $200. just sayin, shipping charges on something as big as a mixer are not likely to be negligible.

Thanks for the advice y'all. There's a Soundcraft 200B on ebay right now that ends in a few days. What do they usually sell for or does the price vary? Music Go Round here in town has a STUDIOMASTER TRILOGY 326 (24 channel) for $500. I'm going to check it out on Monday. I tried to research the TRILOGY 326 on the internet but couldn't find out much about it. Are they decent boards, or would I be much better off with an older Soundcraft?

-Brian

studiomaster stuff sounds pretty good. The build quality isn't as good as soundcraft, sometimes, but they do sound pretty good. Nice eq, pres,etc.

n.c. wrote:search ebay for a soundcraft 200b. Decent, nothing too special, but solid.
-n

I'm glad the 200B got a mention. I worked on one of these for many years and it is indeed solid. In all that time and all those bands and all those sessions only once did a channel crap out and other than that I never had a problem or complaint about that Soundcraft. Gosh, I sort of miss him now!