Really hoping someone can send me a brainwave here.

ProControl is soon to be a thing of the past in our "A" room. Rather than use Pro Tools A/D/A stages to interface all of our "cool guy" analog comps and EQ's, we are ditching the Pro Tools-as-mixer paradigm and going for something analog. Long story as to the 'why' of it, but this is the direction.

A transparent, dead quiet signal path is priority #1.

Space is a constraint, as in a minimum thereof.

Fader/mute auto is a must.

Beyond that, there's not a lot we need in terms of console function. Integral dynamics and killer per-channel pre's and EQ's are overkill, as most of that stuff will be covered by outboard gear. A 'marquee console name' ain't real important either, as we are a private composer-driven facility. Money is not a particular object, SOUND is... but it would be nice to get something for under $100k or so.

So what the heck should we buy? As I survey the field, not a lot of options jump out. I'll be test driving a used Euphonix this week, but not all of my associates seem to be fond of those (bit of a learning curve, and supposedly some sonic issues). Plus the Euphonix may simply be overkill for what we need, which is basically automatible faders and an audiophile signal path.

For a minute we were talking about going SSL, but all of us have worked on them and none of us love the sound of them. Plus they're too big for our room. And expensive.

I've looked into some of the older Trident/Harrison/Neve boards, with an eye to cleaning 'em up and adding moving faders. Frankly I dunno if I want that kind of 'vintage' coloration... I'd rather be able to depend on a transparent signal path in the console, and then add necessary 'color' with outboard. Plus I can't get into some vintage 'science project' - don't have the luxury of time.

What else is out there? People have been chatting up the Speck/Manley/Millennia line mixers, but unless I can retrofit a moving fader pack, none of those are gonna work. The Daking sidecar looks interesting but ain't out yet AFAIK. Someone mentioned D&R consoles as a quiet/transparent option, but I can't find anybody who knows anything about 'em.

I've pretty much exhausted my informational resources, and NEED to make a decision within the next week or so. If anyone has a thought on this PLEASE lemme know. Is there some elegant solution that I'm just not thinking of?