| This seems to be a classic argument of what you don't know scares you.
First of all, Analog consoles are NOT cheaper. A cheap POS analog board will cost you less, but do you really want that? Then, add to the cost of the console the cost of a drive rack. How much do the comps cost? How about reverbs? How are you going to EQ the system? All this can be done inside a digital board. I would also argue that you can keep a "house curve" inside the board and then let anybody mess with the house EQ on a specific show that wants to. That curve can be stored in memory and recalled at a moment's notice.
Along the lines of EQ- how sweepable are the individual bands and can you vary the Q on them? Lower-end analog boards usually have a rather limiting EQ section.
Sound arguments are purely subjective. There are bad sounding digital board and bad sounding analog boards. Many of the digital boards that don't sound very good are helped by clocking externally. If you go digital, plan on getting a master clock. You'll be happy you did...
Now, the issue of usablity... Who is going to be mixing on it? This is honestly the only issue that holds water in this consultant's argument. Many schools/churches do not have a competent engineering staff. If they don't have the ability to figure out how to change a headamp level up or down (as I've seen again and again), this is going to be an issue. I have a client that just got an LS-9 16 and while they are nice folks, they are clueless as to how to use this board. It isn't tough and I've explained it to them time and time again, but they still don't get it. They get lost in the menus and don't understand the terminology.
If you have a staff that has half a clue, then the usability arguments go out the window as well.
--Ben |