the high prices are partly due to the hype surrounding summing mixers right now......

i'm seriously considering starting a production...

let me get this right, hopefully kev the guru can help with this but. a passive out board mixer with no caps, resitors, diods, tubes, or tranies in the signal path. would this not just be a buntch of wires solderd togather?

That would be a very simple passive mixer
BUT
generaly even the most simple idea would have some resistors
otherwise the input sections (outputs of the sources) would see each other as a load and could then end up near to a short.

Yeah ... I know
virtual earth summing junction !!
not now .. we can keep that for later

You will find a few sites with info on summing in both passive and active.

Fred F. had a white paper somewhaer eand ... maybe John H. too
... Joe from JLM Audio may also have something on his site.

Thanks so much for the replies. It was actually a meeting with Joe Malone that got me on this track.
I generally mix as a stereo out but sent three stereo to my Rane DJ mixer one day and I was amazed at the depth that the mix was given with this alone. It was the next day I went to see Joe about some pres. Sadly they may be just out of my read at this time.
Joe mentioned if I had ever noticed mixing with mulitple sends aided the mix. It had confirmed what I had just heard.
It got me thinking would any old transparent mixers offer the same advantages, I guess the proof will be in the puding.
Does anyone have experience using an average transpaent mixer as a summing device and were you able to hear an increase in quality?
Would the noise created be significant enough to oversome the positives that sending multiple sends appears to have?
Thankyou in advance to all who reply.