here is my breakdown. personally id dont see the point in buying an expencive mixer which will wear out fast and i see lots of 500 and 600's in the shop where i used to work. personally i think they are flimsy, cheap pots and faders. i also think the cheaper vastex and neumarks are not worth a crap, they break down very quickly from experience with friends equipment. please note i'm not talking about there more expencive units, have not used them.
it took me a very long time to buy a mixer, i settled on a simple 2 ch, 3 band eq battle style (i'm not a battle style dj though). at first i wanted a mixer with efx but decided that they all sounded either cheap or cheezy and i was really only using them very rare and mainly on the master. so i decided when i wanted to use my exf i could just route them through the master before the amp. the mixer o bought was a stanton sk-2f it was $250 and i have had not problems with mine. three of us around here have them they cost use a range of $150-$300 depending on when we bought and where. we have had one problem unit, the cheapest one, guess you get what you pay for. but the bass pot on one of the channels is going bad. needs to be replaced and stanton warrenty is good for 30 days on that part (bastards). one thing i noticed every 500 or 600 i play is is wack unless it's new or kept in a glass case/has a anal owner. every club i have been at thet has one they are just trash. almost every club around here has one which pisses me off because they are a crappy mixer imo, very cheaply built. if i was you and living in the uk i would look to an a&h i dont care for them much either, but it is a layout issue with me there. i have used the x-zone 32 once and it was a beast to use for me. i really did not like how the preamp volume was on the back of the mixer and the volume curve was set up like a scratch mixer but it had no kill switches. but the mixer was solid sounded good and if a&h makes a dj mixer like they make there desk mixers they will last. the only club around here i can think of that has an A&H is the necto and from my understanding it was very expencive but it's really nice. it has these hudge knobs which leeds me to the one vastex i liek i think is the 245? it's the 19" one with the big knobs for the eq's. scotto lansing, mi plaztikjezuz.com
