Briefly in the mid nineties I owned a Soundcraft Spirit board. It was quite nice other that the fact it seemed too noisy for my taste. I returned it and ended up getting a mackie 1604 vlz at the time.

I'm not sure if they have improved the Spirit's electronics since then. Certainly, I would hope so.

Mackies 1640 Onyx looks quite decent for an inexpensive, small new board. However, I would not know, I've never worked with one.

I have a friend that owns a Soundtracs board, he likes it. Be sure to see if you can have some time to check it out before you put the money down. One part that always seems to wear out fast is the control room / monitor level potentiometer.

Overall I would say go with your gut on this one.

Back in the late 1980s I purchased a Soundtracs 16-8-16, not for its sonic integrity but for features, at the time, others didn't have, that I required. Noise? Rock-and-roll? I wasn't concerned about that. The feature set? Priceless. For everything else there's Mastering Engineers.

I don't care much for the Allen & Heaths. I found those noisy.

Mackie's are impossible to repair You're metric, it's not.

I find the Soundcraft's rather innocuous but functional. Didn't excite me.

I like anything British over cheap American/Chinese. Somehow, DimSum doesn't seem applicable for audio?

I like tasty cuts and sushi comes to mind. Maybe a Japanese console? Don't see many of those?

I'm smelling a little fishy tonight.
Ms. Remy Ann David

You might be able to swing a Ramsa WR-T820 in there if you look long enough. All the WR series are excellent sounding and built like tanks.

Big sound. Not much for auxs but if you're going to a computer you dont need em anyway.

Mackie 8 bus can be repaired, they are just freaking time eaters to fix.

Reading more in to it, it seems that people like the Mackie the least out of the ones I was looking at, even though it is regarded as a 'pro' desk.

Even though the Soundcraft (or is it Spirit?) is the least expensive, it also seems to be getting the most consistent reviews and opinions.

Remy - what was the actual sound of the soundtracs like? Better/worse than a Soundcraft? I can accept that an analog desk is gonna have a little noise.
Does the Yamaha count as japanese? Damn, it only has eight xlr inputs.

Also, on the Soundcraft, would I be able to run the tape sends and returns through a Motu 24I/O or similar? This isn't something that I have now but I'm just thinking for the future.

I'll look out for that Ramsa too, thanks.

If anyone has any answers for the above questions, I'd be very grateful.

"What was the actual sound of the soundtracs like? Better/worse than a Soundcraft? I can accept that an analog desk is gonna have a little noise."

"Also, on the Soundcraft, would I be able to run the tape sends and returns through a Motu 24I/O or similar? This isn't something that I have now but I'm just thinking for the future."

-TG

i give big ups to the mackie Onyx, even though you think you've already ruled it out. very clean and natural. very versitile, routable, and my 1640 seems to be very well built.