Message 30/31
Date: 30-May-02 @ 12:33 AM -
RE: hardware mixing
k: The Panasonic DA7 is pretty solid board, and well made. It has a reputation for being very reliable, and I've never heard any complaints about build quality on the webboards for the DA7. The only problem that has really occurred is that the first units had a fan that got noisy after a while, but Panasonic changed the fan design and replaced them. The only other design defect I know of is a headphone jack that clearly wasn't meant to be used. I didn't even discover the jack until I'd had it for six months (it is well-hidden), and it isn't mentioned in the manuals. Which is fine, because using one of the monitoring busses for headphones is more flexible anyway (what I did during the months when I didn't know there was a headphone jack).
I've used most of the "lower end" (read: <$25k) digital mixers at one time or another, and the DA7 is definitely a "pro" design rather than a "project" or "home studio" design. A lot of people don't know that Panasonic has been making very high-end and very large (e.g. 256-channels) digital consoles for some time, and the DA7 is really more of a reduced channel version of their big digital consoles.
There are a number of features on it that give away the fact that it was derived from a professional studio design spec. 1024-step 100mm faders. More dedicated I/O than I've seen on any similar board. Full dedicated channel strips for the aux sends AND the aux returns. Lots of inserts (digital or analog inserts for the busses). A decent 5.1 surround mixing system. Multiple dedicated monitoring busses. A very mature and thorough operating system. A good sounding and very powerful EQ/filter system on each channel/aux/bus with an EQ librarian function for creating EQ/filter patches you can apply to channels. A great virtual patchbay for connecting and routing all the various inputs and outputs it offers -- a feature which on the DA7 is much more powerful than it sounds. MIDI fader layer with HUI control surface support.
I don't use a good fraction of the features the DA7 has, but I currently use it with Logic 4.8.1 on a Mac G4. I have 16-channels of lightpipe in and out of the computer plus 16-channels of analog. Incidentally, the ADC quality on the inputs is much better than average for a digital console, though only 24-bit 44.1/48kHz -- quite transparent as these things go and not harsh at all.
Overall, I really like the thing. The only real upgrade path at this point would be something like the spiffy Sony digital consoles in terms of the sound and features. This is the first console I've owned where I didn't feel restricted in how I could configure and route things, or in the number of resources available on the board. One of my big complaints about budget digital mixers is the lack of dedicated I/Os for all the features they theoretically support, a problem the DA7 doesn't have and one of the reasons I bought it.