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<blockquote data-quote="John Roberts" data-source="post: 92138" data-attributes="member: 126">Re: Best inexpensive wireless mixerYes, to save the cost of additional connectors and active electronics they often just pad down the line input and run it through the mic preamp. Some boards with line input connectors on the channels, still just pad it down and feed the mic preamp. While it only takes two or three opamps to make a decent balanced line input, this cost times the number of input channels adds up. Most decent consoles will have a few dedicated true line input channels (like efx returns) that do not send the line level signal through an extra unneeded gain stage. I don&#039;t want to make this appear worse than it is. As long as you pad the signal down and don&#039;t clip the mic preamp gain stage it shouldn&#039;t trash the sound quality in any very obvious ways for most audiences, but there are subtle differences. Mic preamps are optimized to deliver low noise and low distortion at full gain, running at minimum gain is not the major focus of that design effort. Running a line level though an extra unneeded gain stage is not as bad as an extra A/D and D/A bounce, but not optimal. If you experience sound quality differences you may want to search for true line inputs or maybe carry some inline pads with you.&nbsp; YMMVJR</blockquote>

[QUOTE="John Roberts, post: 92138, member: 126"] Re: Best inexpensive wireless mixer Yes, to save the cost of additional connectors and active electronics they often just pad down the line input and run it through the mic preamp. Some boards with line input connectors on the channels, still just pad it down and feed the mic preamp. While it only takes two or three opamps to make a decent balanced line input, this cost times the number of input channels adds up. Most decent consoles will have a few dedicated true line input channels (like efx returns) that do not send the line level signal through an extra unneeded gain stage. I don't want to make this appear worse than it is. As long as you pad the signal down and don't clip the mic preamp gain stage it shouldn't trash the sound quality in any very obvious ways for most audiences, but there are subtle differences. Mic preamps are optimized to deliver low noise and low distortion at full gain, running at minimum gain is not the major focus of that design effort. Running a line level though an extra unneeded gain stage is not as bad as an extra A/D and D/A bounce, but not optimal. If you experience sound quality differences you may want to search for true line inputs or maybe carry some inline pads with you. YMMV JR [/QUOTE]

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