Hey guys -

I'm in the market for a line/summing mixer so that, while I'm doing location recordings, I can take 2 feeds from the pre - 1 going into the DAW discretely, the other set going to a summing box, into a nice AD and then into a 2 track recorder (for both back up or straight-to-2-track mixing).

I had my mind set on the Dangerous D-Box until very recently when I saw the Speck XSum.

The Dangerous adds the abilities to do monitor switching, HP amps, talkback and a lot more but only has 8 inputs for summing. The Speck does up to 32 tracks (16 stereo or 16 mono or combinations thereof) but doesn't include the talk back, monitor controlling, etc. If I went with the Speck, I'd probably add one of my Central Stations or a Big Knob when I needed it.

The thing is, I don't know how often I'll need more than 8 summed tracks - certainly not that often.

That being said, I've never used either product nor either brand. I'm game for suggestions based on people's actual experiences with the brands and/or the actual devices themselves. I know Vince from Speck used to post around here a while back...I wonder if he still monitors.

Oh - one other way that I'd use this thing -
It's likely that, if I do a DAW mix, I'd sum out of the box into the summing mixer and then into the Bricasti M7. Again, It's not all that often that I'd be rolling more than 8 channels unless I were doing surround and that kind of makes the summing mixer a moot point, eh?

I patiently await your replies.

Cheers-
J