[jasedee]

You know....."silly things" like resistors make all the difference.

You look at a really high end, beautiful sounding console, and the "Silly" resistors they use cost about 10 or 20 times more than the ones you would find in a Behringer/Mackie mixer. And as far as op-amps goes (chips), these things are the most horrible sounding shit you could ever hope to run a signal through. You think about all the analogue "warmth" Vs. Digital "coldness" arguments and most of the time the analogue gear they are talking about DONT use chips/op-amps, they are running through transformers and high quality capacitors/resistors etc....or tubes!

You can pay $100 for a behringer parametric EQ, full of op-amps.....and then, you could pay $10,000 for a Manley MASSIVE PASSIVE, full of beautiful circuitry made up of transformers and other high quality parts (NOT op-amps/chips) and these things are like the best sounding bit of gear you will ever come across.....you dont even need to actually use the EQ, just run your signal through it and it comes out the other end sounding "Better".......

The parts inside your mixer 100% determines the sound quality that comes out the other end. This is why shit desks sound shit, and Neve desks sound fuckin awesome!

Also, think about in Live sound, where the engineers will often use the VCA groups for sending the drum channels, because they dont want to pass their signals through another set of fader circuitry, as it will degrade the signal more so than a VCA circuitry would.....This is a normal procedure in Live sound, and one which translates into the studio world as well. Engineers will often try to record using the purest signal path, the one that doesnt pass through a whole bunch of extra circuitry, the simplest route. On it's own it may not make a lot of difference, but collectively.....?????

Gosh I wish I had more knowledge of electronics......