What I can't figure out is why is Yamaha pushing the CL5 so hard. (Not that I'm complaining)
My church purchased a CL5 for our broadcast mix during the November promo and we've had our eye's on a second one for PA so we could share the RIO boxes using Gain Compensation. This current promo sure got our attention.
I'm sure Yamaha knows some thing we don't. I'd just like to know if I would care if I knew what they know.
Philip
My guess is the M7CL is about to reach "end of life". It's what, almost 9 years old? That's Paleolithic in
digital anything years. Supposedly the M7 and LS/9 were the first Yamaha digital mixers that had very little processing left over, the hardware platform is mostly utilized and therefore feature expansion via firmware updates is limited.
The new-fangled Digital Crystal Ball doesn't do any better than analog when pointed at Yammy... lets make a few observations: a) Yamaha is due for a replacement for the PM1D; b) the PM5D has been around the block twice (but it does stuff other Yamaha mixers don't); c) the M7/LS9 platform is being eclipsed by newer, cheaper designs; d) the 01v96/DM1k-2k markets are mostly mature and under price pressure as well. Yamaha isn't going to give up the digital mixer biz and they have economies of scale that nobody else but MusicGroup can come close to.
Therefore be it resolved... my prediction is we'll see not 1, but 3 or more new mixers built on a unified hardware platform (although certain parts will not, in true Yamaha fashion, be inter-operable
). I think the CL is the transitional model line.
We should start an office pool...