A mixer is a mixer is amixer. One can take a few resistors with one in series with each channel into a termination resistor and passively mix audio, video, or rf signals..These voltage dividers do absolutely nothng to the quality or frequency response of any frequency.And they "sound good".
A couple of years ago I reluctantly threw away an old 20 channel mixer The knobs were missing on all but one fader, the faders were long past the cleaning stage and could have been replaced but the pins on the xlr plugs were corroded and needed replaced too.. I saved the power supply and later used one of the voltage regulators in an Alesis pwer supply or something.. Out of sentiment I saved the spring box which has 3 screen door type springs in it which was used for efx (True spring for the 50's rock style) The only thing is it takes a hell of a lot more than line level to "tickle" them.. The felt dust catchers which have a slot around the fader arms were long gone...
When I see a testament or review I would like more than "It sounds Good" Any mixer with the levels set in the mid range sounds good. I want to know what the noise floor level is with everything set at unity and not by listening but scoping the ouput with an osciiloscope and the vert amp set at hi gain. Pushing the main faders up and seeing what the noise level does (headroom) There are software programs that digitally measure the gain, freq response and other things like room acoustics. Or one can use the old fashioned method of feeding an analogue signal in and measuring with a scope
The follwing is review on a Mackie
mixer which i have used for a few years. It's been used outside in the hot sun survived the WWV test no interference from the time transmtters (directly under the towers) I have modified it (note the jacks at the top of the 9/10 11/122 channels) They are 'normaled' out thru a Bbe 362 and an Aphex 104..A jack is added on the right which is mixer out to 1/2 return Delta44 The toggle switch to the right of the heaphone out (long since removed) used to switch from mic 1 & 2 to mixer out for recording. I do have a 12 volt fan out of an old tower which blows across the bottom of the case. The heat power supply heat sink is bolted to the bottom of the case.
The following is a review:
Pros
All faders and pots are fully functional and have never needed cleaning.
Using sofware methods or the old way passes or exceeds all specs (and pass now)
The felt dust catchers on the fader arms are still tight and show no signs of drying out
The efx are good but would like the ability to adjust the delay times
I have heard complaints about no mid adjustments but they should never need adj its like the old color tv days the green was a reference and the red and blue were adjusted accordingly
Cons
Although the mic preamps pass the specs they dont see to have the low level gain they should have.. I compensate with the compressor
The record out is a joke to get a normal record level you need to run at unity which is insane
The mute switch is a joke it mutes the mics alright but if you are running DJ music with efx it kills the efx too
I would like the aux 1 send to be after fader so it would adjust the gain of the stage monitor along with the other levels
Maybe it's me but I have a hard time getting a decent vocal music ratio on the stage monitor
I would like more options on the sends such as mic only etc.
All in all this old mixer has taken a lickin and keeps on ticken...