Which Brand of Mixer?

[KrazyKatz]

Im looking to buy a mixer to adjust the volume of my monitor speakers, and mic record with.

The general options here are:
Alto, Gemini, Mackie, Soundcraft and Yamaha.

I havent included Behringer, nor Samson, because too many sources dont recommend them.

Would like to hear anyones experience on the goods and bads of those above.

Cheers

[Waxhead]

This is not my field but a friend of mine have a Mackie mixed. It sounds great and everything but the potmeters (knobs) went bad rather quickly. Perhaps it can be a good idea to have this in mind when googling for Mackie mixers?!

[Snu]

i dont know too much about mixers either, but when my college made a new electronic music lab, we had 21 stations, each with a 16 channel mackie mixer... channels in them would randomly die, and we had to send them back to mackie (more than once in a couple cases). this happend to about half of them if i recall correctly.
so yah, id suggest something other than mackie :)

[SoundCrafter]

Soundcraft! Soundcraft!        

Actually, in all honesty, I've used both a Mackie and a Soundcraft (I named myself BEFORE I saw it lol), and both are quite good, but you seem to be getting some negative reviews for the Mackie...hmm. Never had those problems, but it doesn't hurt to take in into consideration.

[MisterX]

That's a shame, I've been using a Behringer for many years with no problems or complaints.  The live band that I play with uses a Behringer as well...  They seem to be well-made and affordable.

[KrazyKatz]

I dont know. Behringer seem to have a reputation for breaking down, ( which my pre-amps can attest to ). I bought Behringer monitors because they Excellent value for performance & are quite reputable. I happened to check out a Behringer Mixer and found it gave undesirable noise.  :?

I had a listen to Yamaha and found them to have a very neutral sound, clean sound. And whilst I'm not a fan of the huge company, there consoles shine more than I expected.

Alto looked interesting, since they're a no-namer made in Italy, but as a result no-one knows about em so its hard to compare.

Soundcraft  have the best rep of the lot.

[MisterX]

Well, I don't own any stock in any of the mentioned companies, so I don't have a horse in this race so to speak.  I'm sure that you are capable of making an informed decision on the right mixer for your needs.