I am looking into killing a couple of inventory birds in the coming months. I need to add a console with rider acceptability and I need to add a digital snake option to my inventory for a number of corporate events that require cable installs that large analog snakes won't cover. Two options are somewhat near to hand. A Yamaha CL5 has attractive snake options with the DANTE multiple and extendable RIO boxes and plays well in the corporate world but has unknown rider juju. A Digico SD8 has a somewhat less flexible snake architecture in the MADI BNC version but has presumeably as good or better play than either a 5D or a Venue Profile for touring music engineers.
Are there options in the MADI BNC snake that permit extending that format without going over entirely to fiber? Are CL5s getting enough traction that they are accepted in place of a 5D or a Profile? If the band you tour with does the occasional corporate on-off which would you rather see at sound check?
It's too soon to tell if the CL5 is going to pick-up like the PM5D did as far as rider friendliness. We've had it in stock for awhile now and have seen it go out on small tours and one-offs. If it continues to follow Yamaha's historic reliability then it should become a great console. It's also prettyhandy whenever you are worried about seat-kills, it's foot print it much more shallow than the M7CL.
I would be surprised to find a band that didn't accept a CL5 instead of an M7CL, but I could see them getting wonky if you asked to put one in place of a PM5D.
Isn't Yamaha doing the Test Drive program right now? You should hook up with your local vendor and take one out for a few days and see for yourself!