Soundcraft UI24r ot Berhinger X32 Rack mixer

That is,

the extra 15dB of gain in the digital domain
by itself shouldn’t cause any issues

My experience with “affordable” preamps is that close to the full gain setting, noise goes up a lot for only a little extra gain. So for things like ribbon mics that need that extra gain, one may get better signal to noise with less preamp gain and more digital gain. However, that “last little bit” is probably less than 5-10dB extra anyway. By affordable, I mean less than $100 per channel or so. I would guess rather than limiting the gain to within the safe region, the manufacture felt the sales value of some extra gain was worth more.

@lenovens: And hence the importance of getting the gain structure right - in order to maximize the signal to noise ratio. it’s a more complex topic than it first appears, and is very dependent on the quality of individual processing stages (my general point was, its not a simple case of ‘digital gain good, analogue bad’ or vice-versa, or that doing all the gain in the digital domain will somehow work some magic, in fact, quite the opposite, if the original signal is so small as to only occupy a small amount of the available converter resolution).

Mike pretty well covered this… so I will just get my hat:)

Gain structure is incredibly important to get right, and is often misunderstood. It is probably the single most important things to get right to keep a good clean sound in your system.

          Seablade

Greenerpastures: The MOTU is not just an audio interface which is partly why it is priced much higher than the equipment you’re looking at. I have used it as an audio interface and I’ve also used it live and the difference is noticeable live or in the studio. Let us know what you decide to get and your results with it.

Hi dsreyes1014
Yes, I read up the MOTU after wards, as I thought there was more to your comment
about using it, and indeed it has a lot more capability than I initially credited it with,
its physical appearance is also quite misleading.
I will probably go for the UI24r, at the price it seems capable enough for what I want,
I will report back when I get it, I am looking into proper cables to connect it to the speakers,
and found that there are XLR cables that are built to handle line level signals like I require.
While some people just use Mic cables, the proper cables have Four wires twisted into Two
pairs, and are of a more appropriate gauge, the Shielding is also superior as are the interfearance
mechanisms used since line level signals are much stronger than Mic level signals.

In any event, I thank you all for posting your experiences