The Brick doe"s have good reviews but I myself have not used one my self but one thing I don"t like about it is only one channel.
My wife just bought me a Behringer T-1953 Vintager Tube Ultragain forChristmas and I just recorded an acoustic track and all I can wonder is why people badmouth Behringer equipment. I had a DBX pre and if you listen to songs I recorded before and listen to this new recording I just did you would be amazed. NO noise level what so ever. Just a warm clean sound.
Maybe not all there equipment is all that great, " I own two pieces" but it makes me wonder why there one of the biggest music equipment co. in the world if their stuff is so bad.
By the way, the Brick is 350.00 USD. The Behringer unit I have is 125.00 USD and it has two channels. I"m not a Behringer rep or anything like that but I watch my money on my toys and although I can afford the Brick I really like this unit so I"m keeping this one.
JMO but I would suggest checking this out.

People badmouth Behringer b/c for the first time on a large-scale, you're actually getting MORE than what you pay for. They'll sell a $100 unit that'll compete well against units twice the cost in terms of sound/usability/features/etc... they're also in EVERYBODY's face, building live/studio/guitar/bass/PA/mics/amps/rack/DJ/etc... so they're sure to piss some people off. Ok... piss a LOT of people off :)

back to the original question: No expereince /w The Brick on my part but as for your Mackie 1604 question; get it fixed! The preamps are usable, boardering on respectable; especially on low(er) priority tracks like toms, hats, and room mics. Furthermore, those boards are workhorses for the live-sound/bar-scene and hold thier resale value quite well. Worst case, if you hate the pre's for recording, you can get all your $$ back (and more) selling it off to a local bar band and reinvest that in studio pre's more to your taste.

Best of luck

You guys have got to be kidding me about the behringer stuff!!!!????

Behringer doesn't make people mad because they're quality and cheap - they make people mad because they rip off designs and build stuff with dime-store parts. The quality is low and the sales are high (because the idiots at banjo-barn sell it like it's going out of style.)

Truth be told, the attenuator in the Brick probably cost as much as all of the parts combined in the Behringer.

Cheap is fine but quality is important too.

Bad parts = bad sound. It's a well-supported fact. There are those companies out there that are offering gear at great prices which do not simply stuff their chassis with POS parts. Presonus, DBX, ART and a few others do "cheap" correctly.

GT's Brick is an excellent example of "cheap" done right! Is it a Summit or a Hardy? No! But does it sound good and is it made well? Heck YEAH!

Sorry - I've heard just about every piece of Behringer gear on the planet (even owned a few pieces) and I wouldn't rank them with the likes of any other manufacturer. The fact is, their quality is actually going DOWN! (Yup, 5 years ago, their stuff wasn't half bad. Of course, 5 years ago, their 4 channel preamp cost $399! Now, what does their 8 channel preamp with built in converter cost? I think it's a whopping $199!!!)

Face it folks - cheap is fine, but there comes a pricepoint where cheap ain't worth it anymore. When you can't even afford to put the low end parts in your boxes and you have to build crap for a price point, it's just not worth it.

So lcw - I would say - GO FOR THE BRICK!!! You'll enjoy it and it will last you a lifetime.

As for your Mackie - get that sucker fixed up dude! The Mackie Pres are VERY good pres for any budget console. You can make fine recordings on them! Are they on par with the Brick or even A&H pres? Nah...but they are still very nice and you a bunch of them!

Enjoy!

J. 8-)

I got my 1953 used and put JJ ecc83s tubes in it ( total ~100€ )
and not expecting much I´m very satisfied, helps me get by before
I can have my API clones made ( est. >800€ ). Really its a decent
pre although I was sceptical at first.
Matti

Thanks for jumping in Matti, Although Behringer might be referred to as cheap equipment its funny that just about every rack I"ve seen there is at lease one piece of their equipment in there. True most of there stuff may be junk but they do make some good products. Just because the FRMs RNC only cost 175.00 USD does that make it cheap? NO. I know that if a co. makes cheap gear their rep. goes to hell but every now and then they screw up and put a decent piece of gear out on the market and regardless of what you think of Behringer this is a good piece of gear and for now I don"t have any plans to upgrade my pre-amp anytime in the near future.
Enough said about that, Bu all means get your Mackie fixed BUT!!! if it cost too much to repair think about what I"ve said. " wish I could get Kurt to do a test" and post hie results here.
Good Luck.

I have to agree with Cucco on this one. Ditto on the cheap components & the pump it out for cheap as quick as possible, with the most unoriginal design possible! .

By de same token, I own a Behringer Autocom, and I paid $8 for it at one of those sleep over sales where stuff is marked down 90% plus...and i use it cos it does the job on some less important parts. It's all a matter of what you've heard, and what you haven't heard.

I also am ordering a HA 4700 headphone amp cos that thing just rocks. It is what you need in a headphone amp and more for buggerall price. It isn't integral to the signal flow though, so it's not an issue unless you are dealing with clients that NEED an audiophile h/phone mix.

I would happily also use a Behringer BCR controller. Again, no signal path interference of crap components.

B word make good products for some stuff. No doubt.

Anyway back to topic...

I just bought a Brick. I would buy it if i were you. The WORST that can happen is that you don't love it, and lose $50 bucks re-selling it on ebay. If you don't want to do that, just know thta is definately a step up from the other pre's you mention in terms of a 'dark warm sound' but I wouldn't say dark, I'd say warm.

thanks for ur comments

i went yesterdy to get the mackie fixed, its gona cost a bit but i tink ill do it, i need a transfomer from 220v to 110v (norway/america), around 100$.

before i order the brick im gonna take a look at the summit 2BA-221, any1 have any experience with it.

lcw

lcw wrote: thanks for ur comments

i went yesterdy to get the mackie fixed, its gona cost a bit but i tink ill do it, i need a transfomer from 220v to 110v (norway/america), around 100$.

before i order the brick im gonna take a look at the summit 2BA-221, any1 have any experience with it.

lcw

Uh, heck yeah!!! I have a pair of the Summits. They are one of my "Go to" pres. Pretty much every mic is use gets plugged into the Summit first and then I go from there. Let's face it though - $600 per channel of pre ain't cheap! That puts it into the same price range as some John Hardy and GML stuff. It's money well spent though.

Also, FWIW, the guys out at Summit are a very helpful bunch of folks too. If you ever have any issues or problems, they'll make sure they help you out!

I can't recommend many more pres higher than the Summit. (Don't get me wrong - there are good or better ones out there, but for that price, the list is VERY short!

J.