Dear colleagues,
Now I know why VocoPro means... "I told you so..."
Before being illuminated by this excellent forum, I had ordered a VocoPro KJ6000 mixer. As soon as I received it, I knew that this wasn't going to work out. Here are some observations...
1) Cheap looking
2) Lightweight in a cheap way
3) All the knobs and levers feel cheap to the touch
4) Cluttered, non-intuitive layout.
5) The rack tabs are for 12" DJ type mount and not the standard 19" rackmount.
OK... so I plugged it in for my daughter's birthday party, which was a success... all the girls sang non-stop...
Hands on observations:
1) The mixer has only one XLR connection (which I should have known meant trouble before I even ordered it).
2) I had VERY SERIOUS feedback problems. The speakers were more than 5 feet in front of the microphones and I could barely control the feedback. I was using an AKG and a Sennheiser mic, which are both quality mics, so I know they were not the culprit.
3) The microphone control knobs had very little control, because basically the Hi-Z signal (1/4" plug) comes into the mixer too hot, so in order to keep it from feeding back, you gotta keep the MIC levels almost at minimum.
4) The rotary knobs and sliding controls have no range. In other words, very small movements cause very big changes.
5) The Key Control was adequate, although I'm realizing that most people don't need or request key changes.
6) Extremely noisy power switch.
7) Video switch was useful, straight forward.
Channel A & B assignment switches useful.
Veredict... stay away from it... way over priced... looks more like a toy than a professional piece of equipment. Paid $209.00... it's on EBay right now... If I was flowing in the dough, I would throw it away and not complicate somebodie's life with it, but I need to recoup some of my investment. Instead, I bought a used Mackie 1202 on EBAY for $149.00!
Again... thanks for the support and the comments!