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[Jon Brunskill]

... and the preamp alone is not responsible for the sound of the whole desk ...

FWIW http://www.audiomasterclass.com/newsletter/the-famous-5-preamp-everything-you-need-to-know#article_2

agreed completely. Maybe 10% of the sound, processing and summing and output drive and A/D and D/A are also huge parts of the puzzle. I roll my eyes when people tell me they bought the M32 for the A-MAY-ZING Midas preamps.

[Steve Loewenthal]

So what "sections" of a digital mixer are digital?

The power switch.  (Sorry.  That's about all I can contribute.) 

A: The parts that run on ones and zeros.

First I want to give visibility to David Allred. The original question was what parts are digital, not what parts are analog.
He contributed a correct answer. It just took a little longer for others to realize it was an actual contribution.

As to the ones and zeros, while potentially correct, it is still only a partial contribution as not all digital is in ones and zeroes.
The early computers contained many relay switches, which is either on or off. It was only the paper analog representation that showed this as ones and zeroes.
Core memory was always on, but the polarity is what mattered. It was basically an iron dougnut with a couple wires strung through it.
Most modern processors are basically millions of very small transistors that either allow the circuit to continue or not.

I may even be convinced that digital does not run on ones and zeroes, but instead run on the digital entities that can be represented by an analog string of a 2 character alphabet.

With all that said, please forgive me for not actually contributing anything meaningful to the original question.

[David Allred]

agreed completely. Maybe 10% of the sound, processing and summing and output drive and A/D and D/A are also huge parts of the puzzle. I roll my eyes when people tell me they bought the M32 for the A-MAY-ZING Midas preamps.

Odd how when ever someone mentions that the Mida pres are worth the extra money, no one ever spoke up to the contrary.  Why so?

[Scott Holtzman]

First I want to give visibility to David Allred. The original question was what parts are digital, not what parts are analog.
He contributed a correct answer. It just took a little longer for others to realize it was an actual contribution.

As to the ones and zeros, while potentially correct, it is still only a partial contribution as not all digital is in ones and zeroes.
The early computers contained many relay switches, which is either on or off. It was only the paper analog representation that showed this as ones and zeroes.
Core memory was always on, but the polarity is what mattered. It was basically an iron dougnut with a couple wires strung through it.
Most modern processors are basically millions of very small transistors that either allow the circuit to continue or not.

I may even be convinced that digital does not run on ones and zeroes, but instead run on the digital entities that can be represented by an analog string of a 2 character alphabet.

With all that said, please forgive me for not actually contributing anything meaningful to the original question.

Hexadecimal notation is just a simple way to represent 8 binary states.  Most processors in 70's were 8 bit but the data and address bus were 16 bit so those we're 4 digit hex FFFF would be high on all 16 lines on the bus.

Sent from my VS996 using Tapatalk

[Tim McCulloch]

Odd how when ever someone mentions that the Mida pres are worth the extra money, no one ever spoke up to the contrary.  Why so?

Some of us don't wish to begin the extended pissing contest over preamps... okay, I'm lying.  I LOVE to argue about the utter BS that 99% of preamp drivel is.  But I'm not taking the bait.

[Roland Clarke]

Some of us don't wish to begin the extended pissing contest over preamps... okay, I'm lying.  I LOVE to argue about the utter BS that 99% of preamp drivel is.  But I'm not taking the bait.

I love the fact that a certain pre/eq/compressor combination used to be so popular as a money channel even with the advent of digital desks I used to see them in foh racks all the time.  The joke was that studio engineers used to consider them pretty rubbish.

[Robert Lofgren]

I can tell that if I connect a sm7b to an xr18 and a mr18 with a +60dB of preamp gain that the mr18 has less preamp noise. 

Odd how when ever someone mentions that the Mida pres are worth the extra money, no one ever spoke up to the contrary.  Why so?

[Uwe Riemer2]

Odd how when ever someone mentions that the Mida pres are worth the extra money, no one ever spoke up to the contrary.  Why so?

You called?

To me the DL16/X32 signal path sounds better than the X32.
To me and others the DL251 signal path sounds better than the DL16.
To me a soft clipping circuit on the preamp is a useful tool.
Do these compensate lack of art or bad mixing decisions? No

Does quality of the processing algorythms matter? The best sounding concert I heard was Tobi Hof mixing Deep Purple on the Pro2C, no outboard gear.
Does feature set, look and feel matter? The reason I would not buy a S21.
Does the mixing app matter? A&H should really hire David Giga

Ups I got carried away

[Steve M Smith]

I can tell that if I connect a sm7b to an xr18 and a mr18 with a +60dB of preamp gain that the mr18 has less preamp noise.

I'm sure you can in a critical listening situation, but can you tell with live music?  I have an XR mixer and preamp noise has never been an issue.


Steve.

[Robert Lofgren]

No, it is only an issue with voiceovers or similar low level applications using the sm7b and you really need to crank the gain. It becomes highly obvious if you gate the voice.

The sm7b is notorious for its very low output and many mixers struggle with the sm7b unless you use a cloudlifter in between. Please note that I’m not talking about highlevel sources like brass or guitar amps.

As soon as you lower the gain I’m hard pressed to hear any big diff. A slightly more high-end on the mr18, but I tend to lowpass the highend anyway as I in general don’t like any highend buildup when using many channels. Just like any lowend buildup.

I'm sure you can in a critical listening situation, but can you tell with live music?  I have an XR mixer and preamp noise has never been an issue.


Steve.

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