by BjornZetterlund » Thu Jan 22, 2015 3:10 pm
Thank you very much for that, Gareth...I should have been able to figure that out for myself really.
Must say I'm a bit surprised to find an active panpot at all in this desk; usually an active or buffered pan will be used when the bus resistors are also lowered in value to take advantage of better noise and crosstalk. The 8000 doesn't do this, and presumably couldn't since the more basic input channel (pretty much identical to the 800B) doesn't have active pan and would therefore be unable to deal with lower bus impedance.
Seems to me that the only improvement the active pan brings on the 8000 would be the better pan law and the improved 'offness' (ie panning hard left removes nearly all the signal to the right). I was never aware either of those were big issues for a live desk, so it seems unusual to me that it was added. If you know anything about the history of the design of this desk I'd be very interested.
My favourite electronics book is Douglas Self's small signal audio design, it's been brilliant reading and offers so much insight into mixer design, and in particular with Soundcraft desks since I believe he was head of design there, and it says in your intro you worked with him. Must say it's brilliant to have you here being able to answer questions about Soundcraft desks, so thank you!
Bjorn