I want to get a Phonic little Mixer, any advice / warning?

[Nestor]

I am thinking of getting this little mixer, anything to say about this, I'm choosing a cool one? All I need is a couple of channels for my little studio, is all I use.

What I’m most concerned about is “noise” or “color”, which is something I don’t want, and durability.

Any advice will be appreciated, particularly if you know their products. Cheers


http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/8 ... tereo.html

[Nestor]

In case you want details about it, being you a tech guy, here you have:

https://phonic.boxcn.net/shared/rt4uhl44bm

[garyb]

pretty decent product for cheap.

it's not exceptionally good, but it's not bad either. quiet and relatively neutral sounding....

Phonic is an OEM manufacturer. they make Yamaha, Roland, Mackie, Behringer and many other companies' products.

[Nestor]

Thanks, that’s what I wanted to know Gary, quiet and reliable They must know what they do if they are OEM manufacturers for such great companies. Of course, I don’t expect the highest quality for this price, that’s fine for me, I will use it most of all for monitoring, not really as an IN device.

[Nestor]

This is a small contender that has exactly the same price, which I think it could be also in the list:

http://www.peterverspuy.nl/analoge-meng ... alid=en_US

Now, as a trademark, which of both would be the best, Suntec or Phonic? I think they will be pretty much the same at this price.

[garyb]

that's probably made by Phonic. i'd go with Phonic.

[Nestor]

Thank you Gary, I'll follow your advice on this one, thanks for your kindness

[ChrisWerner]

Do you need Mic Ins or only Line Ins? I think you can compare the phonic things with the little Behringer ones, or?
My Behringer 10 Ins two of them are Mic Ins, is really noisy at the Mics. But I use the LineINs mainly, so it does the job for me.
I use it to monitor and pre mix Line signals live.

[garyb]

behringer is made by phonic.

yeah, they're noisy compared to really high quality stuff, but they're really pretty quiet compared to super inexpesive stuff of 10 years ago.

[Immanuel]

I have really bad experience with Phonic - specifically with their Firefly 808u. Worst gear purchase I've done in a long time.

First, I got digital noise on either all even or odd channels after the unit had been on for while. Restart would make the unit work again. But the problem would reapear. Mind you, this was in a supposedly pure analog signal path acording to the block diagram. I used it as 8 preamps going in to my Creamware A16 converter, because the ADAT out is not designed to give 8 channels in stand alone mode.

They replaced the unit with another unit that looked slightly used ...
... after a few minutes, the power supply in the new unit blew.

They replaced the power supply
... I found that ALL the gain pots where scratchy and had huge jumps near the end of the range.

I am going to send it back for repair again.


So my conclussion is that the build quality is really bad. I will not buy another Phonic product. The sound was fine for the price.
... oh, also you can not trust their specs. In the manual it says the 808u is 88 mm high (2 units). But it has big feet under it which makes the unit higher, so it does not fit in 2 units in a rack. The feet are glued on.

[Fluxpod]

These phonic Beer inger mixers are very good at breaking and producing electronic waste.Thats about it.Oh and they sound like shit when they work.Ok for monitoring at home imo but i wouldnt go near those things even for that task.I hate buying gear that will break.

A Yamaha or Roland mixer would be a better buy.And yes they are also Manufactured by phonic but at different standarts.Spend around 150 to 200 bucks and that mixer will last.

[garyb]

Yasmaha and Roland in similar price ranges are Phonic mixers.

face it. if you want high quality, you must pay. if you want cheap but functional, these Chinese made(yes, German, American and Japanese low end means Chinese made) work fine. don't expect them to be high quality.

[Nestor]

Chris, to record I use my Joemeek Pro-Chanel VC3 which has a great sound, so I don’t really need Mic or Line Ins. But I’m sure that having two Mic lines available I will experiment with them sure, I enjoy experimenting.

My problem with Behringer trademark is that they tend to be very noisy and colored. I had one long ago, I don’t remember the model now, then I’ve got a Midiman, which is the one I have now, but it’s getting too old and I cannot longer clean it when it gets noise because the pots are hermetically closed, so you cannot spray them with pot cleaner.

As Gary says just below your post, 10 years ago these little Mixers were in a rather low category in sound quality, so perhaps Behringer is better now.

Ups Immanuel, that’s scary…, sorry about that, you’ve got this one I can see:

If just one unit is bad, ok, but if 3 units are bad…, the product seems to be bad and the check-pass they do to them.

Thanks Fluxpod, I understand your point, and you bet this is mine also, I want specifically two things: low noise, reliability-durability.

I don’t expect for these little mixers to be high quality, as I said in a post before, but reliability and durability, in the given quality and standard, must be achieved.

Anyway, I guess that it is not the same thing to buy a cheap mixer versus a more expensive mixer, even if it is from the same company. I don’t think that Phonic is bad in everything, it is impossible being such a big manufacturer worldwide, otherwise they would be broke.

Ok guys, in that case, which mixer do you suggest so, and how much more should I be gathering for its purchase? Thanks for all your answers

[Fluxpod]

For monitoring and some actually good mic pres.Mackie 802 VLZ3. Around 220€.Solid build low noise and very good features.Thats a Buy once last forever item ime.

[Immanuel]

To record I use my Joemeek Pro-Chanel VC3 which has a great sound, so I don’t really need Mic or Line Ins.

What exactly do you need it for? Can you explain the routing you plan to do?

Ups Immanuel, that’s scary…, sorry about that, you’ve got this one I can see:

If just one unit is bad, ok, but if 3 units are bad…, the product seems to be bad and the check-pass they do to them.

It was "only" 2 bad units. The second time they repaired the PSU.

I want specifically two things: low noise, reliability-durability.

The 808u was not too noisy. But I would rate it very low in the reliability-durability department. 8 out of 8 Brand new pots should not be scratchy and unreliable. A PSU shouldn't blow up in minutes. Digital noise should not get into an all analog signal path.

[Nestor]

Can you explain the routing you plan to do?

Sure:

I have the VC3 which I use as a line-in device to send and record everything into Cubase through Pulsar, so the VC3 it is right now switched to the Pulsar Ins, and I use the Midiman mixer to route things out for monitoring both, through headphones and speakers, as simple as that.

BTW, you may be interested in looking at it, this is the Midiman-Multimixser-10 that I use, really minimal...

http://www.musicfarm.org/input/test/t-multimixer.html

http://www.synthman.com/midiman/115900.html

Now, it has very low noise and very clear sound... no complains about it, a "little man".

Now, seen the possibility of getting a new mixer, well…, I’m starting to wonder what I could do with it, I could use some external gear I have and experiment, then recording with two stereo microphones is something tempting for sure.

The answer is: I need, strictly speaking, “monitoring” and nothing else, but I will take advantage of these new possibilities too with this change.

In Chile I will not have, not even 5% of the options you can have in, let say, California, so I will have to play with what I have at hand…

Now, a new contender at double the price is this one:

http://www.sinn7.com/product_info.php/l ... 6-USB.html

http://www.sinn7.com/media/products/221156_Sinn7_IM.pdf

It looks pretty cool to me. It seems robust and better build than the Phonic. What do you think about it? Anyone in favor or against? Cheers

[garyb]

Mackie, high quality?

you do know that those are now built in the Phonic factory, no? Mackie has shut down almost all US manufacturing. they nearly went bankrupt a few years ago. the funny thing about Mackie, is that when they came out, they were the cheapest thing that sounded decent available. they were very usable crap. now, with the inevitable race to the bottom to try to match the crappy Mackie build quality at a very low price, everything has become crappier. what's so crappy about the Mackie build? before Mackie, every channel on a Mixer had it's own card. if a channel died, you could just remove the card and replace it, or fix it. the Mackie mixer was all on one board, making it disposable, very cheap to build, but repair requires disassembling EVERYTHING. Mackie is hyped-up shit. Mackie does have a well designed circuit, so the stuff works nicely, but it is not well made. it's made to use and throw away.

as to the firewire problems, firewire IS a problem. everyone uses a stock firewire interface board(which is why they promote firewire, it's cheap to make since there's almost no development involved) and those boards blow up quite easily when hot-swapping. the power conductors can short and blow out the board when connected with power on.

no one has to believe me, i only bought, traded and sold used gear for more than 25 years for everyone from Michael Jackson, David Lindley, Los Lobos, Joe Walsh, the Eagles, Ocean Way Studios, the guy from up the street, etc...

[garyb]

Now, a new contender at double the price is this one:

http://www.sinn7.com/product_info.php/l ... 6-USB.html

http://www.sinn7.com/media/products/221156_Sinn7_IM.pdf

It looks pretty cool to me. It seems robust and better build than the Phonic. What do you think about it? Anyone in favor or against? Cheers

it looks like another chinese Mackie knockoff. i sincerly doubt that it is any higher quality. there's not much point in stressing over such a low budget purchase. if it works, great! don't abuse it and you should be able to use it for a long time, regardless of which of these little crappiles you get. the thing that is most likely to die is the power supply, unless you drop it, put heavy things on top of it or shoot it. this one is definitely an off brand, however. it's just a stock design with a different faceplate. all of these small mixers are design A, B or C with mix and match paint jobs. the companies that make them sell gear, rather than design, develope or make gear.

[Nestor]

I do belive you Gary and make good use of your expertice in this matters.

Yet another contender, a bit different and with other capacities:

http://www.music-instruments.co.uk/lane ... -4526.html

Any ideas? Cheers

[garyb]

that is total garbage.

the exact same device is available from Phonic, Kustom and many other no-name cheap PA sellers.
i would use it, if that's what i had/could afford assuming that i only needed vocal enforcement for an acoustic band in a coffee house-type gig(20 people). we used to use almost the exact same head to test PA Speakers coming back from rental. occasionally, it would smoke and be replaced by another of the same.