gespot op newsgroup: Pro-Live-Sound over de toekomst van Mackie ?
What happening in 2003?
Laying people off
Moving 80% of high volume production to China
(Any surprise? get fortune cookie with mackie)
Dropping MDR and large format analog consoles(40/8, 56/8)
No new Digital consoles for now.
Zeer duidelijk taal over het Mackie design ?
Having Become increasingly more disillusioned about Mackie boards
(Mainly from servicing them - o.k I confess I still Run an SR32-4)when
I decided to replace my Venerable old Yamaha MC802 (In sydney this is
the size of board that goes out the most often Pokies have completely
killed most reasonable sized Gigs)
I ended up going an A&H GL2200/20
and I have to say .... what a breath of fresh air I can pull a
reasonable mix on the SR32-4 but the twin sweep e.q, the quietness,
the flexibility and Routing etc etc etc. WHY THE F^)K DID I BUY A
MACKIE!! several years ago .....
well actually at the time there was
nothing much near it for the price the Soundcraft Spirit was twice the
price in Aus but I wish now I had waited 12 Months or so.
My only negative comment is that the Pad switch does not indicate that
it is also the Mic/Line Switch - had me stumped for a couple of
minutes.
Sorry just had to express my delight in some forum this happened to be
it.
Regards
Richard Freeman
Olli Rajala wrote:
-
- Sorry if this is a stupid question.
- At least it shows up that I don't
know yet much about this NG but it's not miracle because I have read this group just about a couple of days.
-
- I have seen some messages that have said that man should avoid
- Mackie's mixers.
Why you said this? I've always believed that Mackie
- is a good mark. Is the reliability in the Real Use (tm) the reason
- for that? Or is there some other reasons?
-
Probably best to do a google search on the subject, but to sum it up...
Mackie might be ok (not great, mind you) for a small, amateur home
studio. For professional live sound however, they have no real use. The
term "pro" technically means that you get paid, but it also carries an
underlying theme of reliability and competence, hence the term
"professionalism." A Mackie console has no "professionalism". It's
components are sub-standard and fail regularly, compromising it's
reliability. It's competence is undermined by it's inability to do a
good job when it DOES work. The mic pre's pick up RF better than my
walkman radio, the EQ is less adequate than many others in it's price
range, and the power supply does not deliver enough power to run all of
the mixers' op amps without sagging, shutting down or failing all
together.
When you're in a home studio environment, you have the time to repair
and/or work around these shortcomings. Your project can wait a few
hours, or even days and weeks. In a live environment, the conditions are
much worse and the time available to fix or circumnavigate problems is
practically non-existent.
Since a person who lacks reliability and competence is often considered
an amateur, regardless of his payment status, I feel Mackie also fits in
this category. Mackie is an unprofessional mixer whose shortcomings
cannot be circumnavigated in a live environment. I believe this is why
the regulars of alt.audio.PRO.LIVE-sound (a.k.a. the Million Dollar Snob
Team, or MDST) do not recommend Mackie for use in a PRO or LIVE
environment.
Ralph
"Jason Lavoie" wrote in message
news:3b521738.154444290@news1.on.sympatico.ca...
have seen some messages that have said that man should avoid
- Mackie's mixers. Why you said this? I've always believed that Mackie
- is a good mark. Is the reliability in the Real Use (tm) the reason
- or that? Or is there some other reasons?
-
I asked the same question a while back, and I found it hard to get
- specific answers. partly because some people on here are dead set
- against everything mackie stands for, and partly because the rest of
- the people are afraid to speak up.
-
snip
- some say that since the mackie is built all on one board and since it
- is made with surface mount components that it is more likely to have
- trouble, but speaking from an industry that relies heavily on this
- type of construction I'm inclined to believe that the mackie should be
- more reliable (as long as it's built right)
That surface mount construction is one of the biggest shortcomings in my
book and I'm also speaking with experience in an industry that relies
heavily on SMD components.
When using SMD components, they are first glued in place on the PC board and
then the whole board is run through a solder bath that is around 700 deg F.
Most components can withstand the short term high temperature of the solder
bath without ill effects. Unfortunately, SMD aluminum electrolytic
capacitors are not one of those components. Tests by the actual
manufacturers of the SMD electrolytics reveal that the average working life
of an SMD aluminum electrolytic is (a poor) 2000 hours when the temperature
of component remains below 300 deg F. If the component temperature EVER
rises above 300 deg F then the working life of the component is 1000 hours
or less. The 700 deg F solder bath obviously raises the component
temperature above 300 deg F, thereby degrading component performance.
The degradation takes the form of electrical and physical leaks. The
electrical leak will cause a circuit to consume more current than designed,
meaning that the power supply has to work harder. In a device that has a
marginal power supply to begin with, this will cause voltage sagging.
The physical leak is the electrolye itself. Outside of the capacitor, it is
corrosive and when it contacts the copper traces of the PC it begins to
corrode them. You can bet that Wackie doesn't use any more copper than
necessary, so the corrosion can do a lot of damage, possibly rendering the
traces unrepairable.
OTOH, only the leads of through-hole components are heated by soldering, not
the whole component and the exposure time in the solder bath is reduced,
since there is less mass to be heated.
The only conclusion that I can draw from this is that devices using SMD
aluminum electrolytics are intended by design to fail early. One would
expect to find this design ethic in consumer grade products and I guess
that's what class of product this thread is about.
GK