Mackie Onyx 820i FireWire Recording Mixer Review

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(More customer reviews)After an existing audio interface went bad, I ordered the Mackie Onyx 820i as a replacement (not from Amazon), setting out to love the thing. I did at first, but after noticing some limitations, I am exchanging it for a different setup. My biggest gripe is the low output to the DAW. At detent, the highest level captured in a waveform was -22dB. At full gain (firewire send is pre-fader, so gain is only option for adjusting level unless you route everything - and I do mean everything - through a preamp) I was capturing -16dB, regardless of instrument (this introduced a lot of noise when recording guitar). A follow up call to the vendor from which I purchased it revealed that other customers had noted the same characteristic. Some would argue that this is just fine when recording in 24-bit, but I'd prefer to make that adjustment on my own rather than having hardware make the decision for me. Gripe #2 - no control panel. The only setting you can adjust outside of the DAW software is buffer size.
Maybe this thing needs someone smarter than me at the wheel, but all the same, I'm going with a different interface.

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Mackie Onyx 1640 16-Ch./4-Bus Premium Small-Format Mixer Review

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(More customer reviews)Look, if you're seriously considering a board of this type in this price range, you don't need a recitation of the specifications in a review. What you are more likely looking for is an opinion. Mine is that you have to rate a board in the right context. You wouldn't compare this to a digital studio board, for example, except to show why the markets are different.
The Onyx series board are basically analog live sound boards enhanced in a number of ways making them more appropriate to: 1) pro use, and they see a LOT of pro use, 2) small studio use, and 3) recording use, live or studio. The channel strips on the 1640 have everything you want 95% of the time. The board has tons of headroom. It's very quiet. The faders and knobs are buttery smooth. The build quality is excellent, inside and out.
Forget "Perkins" this and "Boutique" that in the Mackie propaganda. Go listen to the mic pre-amps - they are clean, neutral, and high-quality. Say what you will about the characteristic sound of certain pre-amps, but in my opinion you want neutral when they're in a board and not outboard gear.
The Firewire card works flawlessly - I've never had a single burp from the thing. It delivers a stereo mix for quick and dirty live recording as well as the individual channels.
It's a 4-bus, 6 send design. Plenty, again, for most uses, and obviously very well-suited to any reasonable portable use. There are lots of good reasons to keep the board in the analog domain, even in the studio, but as that's a religious war, I won't jump in except to say that this is analog well done.
Some things I could do without or done differently. DB-25s for direct outs, for example. The rotating pod feature doesn't do anything for me. At some point, something more than 96k on the Firewire board would be good.
Bottom line is that this is a well-positioned, well-engineered, widely-accepted board that is flexible enough to cover a wide range of activities. Unlike many compromise solutions, this one does most everything very well.

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The new FireWire capable Onyx 1220, 1620 and 1640 premium analog mixers come equipped new Onyx mic preamps and our completely new Perkins EQ circuitry.

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