+1 for soundcraft
I have a Spirit 32 Auto - lots of I/O, pretty good eq, modular internals and easy to maintain
Sounds good to me and very quiet even when 72 ins are connected.
All for pretty minimal dollars.
I use it for everything except for my fancy analog channels and summing needs
I like to save the building effort and cash for the diy rack pieces and have
them go directly to DAW as well as a diy summing unit for combining DAW tracks
'better' than what the soundcraft does. (not even sure there is much in that)
So using a mix of technologies, DAW+fader unit, cost effective analog mixer for monitoring
and routing as well as diy channels and summing, I think I get a system which suits me
and is practical as far as diy and cash go (if such a thing is possible!)
Anyway, +1 for Soundcraft. Fine, no BS quality IMHO.
20years operation and counting with only minor maintenance.
Still, if I had the cash I'd buy a fancy desk!
But I don't. So I won't
PS - it's also very cool to hear from some of the guys who worked on their design!
Cheers