Well killing your mix at around 18k is your thang then great bro. But honestly I didn't say I hear 40k. I said I can percieve when my assistants kill the highs in their mix like you do. And I said you can do stuff up that high with DSD and DXD technology. And its especially important when grabbing information. And when you have analog technology like avalon 2077's and Manley Passive that eq extremely high frequenices ask your self? Is there a reason that they put that there?
Or maybe I could close my eyes and ignore it. And forget that there IS a reason its there, and that there are so many different companies that have things well above 20k on their equipment and software (Roger Nichols plugins for example).
Now back to my earlier statement. Analog companies are not doing that well. We can see this by the recents shift in VST, AU, and RTAS plugins that emulate hardware. We can also see it with more engineers mixing ITB. Finally we can also see it by companies like SSL moving to create mice rather then boards. So if you ask me, the market 10 years from now as far as analog gear is concerned looks dim. Do I like the sound of that.... hell no. Am I understanding that this is probably what is going to happen. Yes. Even students in schools right now across the board, which are our future don't even like working with analog gear. Even when we try to push it and show them the advantages of it. However, denial of where the future is going is not healthy either. There are a lot of amazing engineers that were never able to make the jump from analog to pro tools in the late 90's and 00's. Who had the same mentality. I just don't think having this kind of mentality is healthy nor beneficial. People will have to eventually embrace the future,,, even if you don't like where its going.
Finally, back to the question at hand I think right now the best boards for your money honestly are the Tascam DM - 4800 for under $5g's and the Yamaha O2R for under $10g's. They have pre's, eq's, dynamics, and easily integrate with various different DAW software. And the best part is that with a nice TT Patch bay you pretty much have endless possibilities. The other thing, is these boards will be around for a while because they also accept surround sound formats. I would definitely keep my eyes out for a used one of these. They have numerous advantages.
