Pre-amp

tony, are you thinking of comissioning a ASS R2U preamp? that would be something i'd love to see!

I know enough good people in the business to get anything in electronics made. Coming face to face with a 'pre-amp' made me think. There are good and bad points with a lot of them, that's not to say they are unusable, far from it, but having an outside view on things can help sometimes. In my time I have been involved with 2 different x/o's and had a hand in the main functions of a giant 4 way stereo amp that run my Aura 4T's. Some people in electronics aren't always the best people to design the facilities, a lot of good advise can come from artists who use equipment all the time. What drives me towards equipment is the fact that I'm always looking for something that will make my speakers sound better. This doesn't mean I have to spend the earth, however, if I got involved in a pre-amp, there would be no compromise. Still thinking.

I Have never bem involved in Roots / Reggae gigs, But used to deal with some tecnhno DJ's
I used to find that especially the ones that used to produce their own tunes, used to use the mixer creatively to make the sort of mixes that they were interested in.
The mixer output would usually have to be run thu a compressor / limiter to deal with the 'crunchy peaks'.
Let the DJ's do their thing, but you need that external control of the PA to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Even reasonably expensive mixers are mostly junk inside so I used my experience with modifying Hi-Fi equipment to rip them apart and rebuild them. Mostly the mods would involve beefing up the PSU and re-capping the mixer with better quality capacitors.
I still do similar mods to my PA system - For instance my DCX2496 is re-capped and the troublesome ribbon cable is replaced with hardwired Silver plated PTFE wire. Hint Panasonic FC caps are good sounding affordable caps and they are readily available in sizes that will fit in existing spaces in equipment.
Having said all that if we are talking vinyl the deck support is the most inportant part of the system, when it comes to getting everybody up and dancing!