Hello,

I'm looking for a small gigging mixer with no onboard effects, 4 to 8
mono mics, and 2 to 4 stereo line inputs. I can sacrifice some mono
channels (no less than 4) if it means getting beter sound quality and
headroom for the higher price. My top priority is sound quality and a
price of $300 to $600 dollars. I pretty much ruled out Allen and Heath
based on price. So it seems to be down to Mackie VLZ Pro or one of the
hodge-podge of Soundcraft mixers. The Mackie line is pretty easy to
figure out, but the Soundcraft models are hard to distingush and seem
to overlap.

For Soundcraft it looks like either the M series or Spirit E series are
the competition for VLZ Pro. Does this sound right? The M series
seems to have better headroom and an spdif output over E series.

Would I be better off with the Soundcraft or the Mackie VLZ Pro? If so
what Soundcraft is good.

Thanks for any opinion I can get on this.