Mackie XDR Pre amps....

Hi all I may be in the market for a Mackie Mixer with some
XDR pre amps. I have a Behringer UB series desk and the quality seems
fine for the price but I may embark on  projects that would benefit from
near "high end" preamps and0 fully Balanced I/O.

Any XDR preamp users here?

Are you happy?

Can you believe the Mackie Hype on XDR technology?

Thanks

By the way SteveG I got an Octopre LE (my own choice)and took it back to the shop within 3 hours, I done some serious tests and the preamps
were tonally identical to the UB's from Behringer, the only difference I could
discern was an almost imperceivable bit of additional noise from the
UB series, but tonally very very similar. defo not work the money in my opinion.

Also the Octopre LE was very poorly built, I would say worse than
the Behringer gear, loose connectors, wobbly pots, shoddy buttons,
Not sure how Focusrite could put their name  on the LE version frankly.

Thanks

I've never heard the XDR pre-amps, but I would NEVER trust Mackie hype so would approach these with suspicion, certainly not spending money on them until I'd heard them.

Bob

I have been using Mackie gear in the field for several years, starting with the MS series (1202) moving to the 1202VLZPRO and currenty using the 1402VLZPRO. Both Pro models use the "XDR" preamp.

Compared to the Behringer gear it is definitely a step up. Compared to other mid-quality mixers, Soundcraft, EV, Allen&Heath they are fine. A lot of individual preference for those boards comes more form the EQ section rather than the pre, IMHO.

For general use the Mackies are certainly OK and I have used them to capture some good live recordings. CBC showed up at a spoken word event that I was providing FOH for and opted to use the aux outs of my 1202VLZPRO (rather than set up a parrallel system) for their live recording that was later broadcast nationally. I can guarantee that the signal out of a Behringer board would not have made it to air.

If you only need one or two channels of pre why not look at the RNP or Brick? Similar price to a small Mackie board and another step up in quality.