Let's say these cost QSC $5.00 per channel at the quantity they're buying them in, if they're almost $9 to you and me in quantities of 1K that could be in the ballpark. The big mixer has 16 channels, times $5 that's $80 just in parts cost. There may be some other factors involved since this chipset duo is likely much larger than whatever preamp QSC is using in the box, but let's ignore them. Take that $80 and apply the usual 4x markup by the time you and I ever see it at retail, and suddenly these cheap little chips aren't cheap at all. The additional cost at retail would be $320, which puts this mixer closer to the M32 Compact than the Mackie DL1608.
I know nothing about QSC's product strategy or whatever, and certainly aren't their defender or spokesman, but it's a lot more expensive than it seems at first blush. If I were in charge of this mixer, I certainly wouldn't add that kind of money to the product's cost for an application a very small percentage of end users are likely going to really care about when they start putting their dollars down.
