What should I buy?

Is the Prime 2 discontinued? Can’t seem to find any for sale new, only used. I’m a little nervous buying used gear. I like the size of the SC Live 2 but I need two mic inputs. Is the SC Live 4 decent? I heard the mic inputs are much better on the prime units. The Prime 4 is such a large unit, but I’m tempted to try it out. Thoughts?

prime 2 discontinued → maybe you find one on the used marked.

You could use a dongle for the two mic inputs.

Prime 4 is an actual beast that can do all the stuff you want and with a hardcase it is still portable. Next step would be some standalone players.

prime 4 with such a case:

You could consider a small and cheap sub mixer for handling the microphones if being compact is your goal.

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I’m with Stu on this one, especially if you’re just getting into it. If you opt for the prime 4 you’ll be well over 2500 by the time you get yourself case/bag, decksaver and monitors. You could step into an SC Live 4 (2x Mics) with all that and a compact mixer for the same price. If your budget is closer to the 1k mark and two channels is really all you want don’t discount the Mixstream Pros. I’ll also add that having a compact mixer in your arsenal is like a swiss army knife in your pocket. They are extremely useful in live, studio and streaming situations.

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I bought the tiniest Mackie VLZ mixer because I wanted a HQ powerful headphone amp. It turned out that there was imbalance between the stereo channels in the headphone amp . And ironically on this particular model no balance knob exists to compensate this. According to user reviews at Thomann Mackie knows about it… Also the power supply rattles which other users also experienced. Otherwise nice, small, goodlooking. Too bad!

[Edit: don’t know if it was VLZ or VLZ4, looked like the latter though. Purchased not long ago, but can’t find the product or reviews at Thomann anymore]

This sounds more like a quality control issue. It seems to be more prevalent the last few years given the current state of things. I have a 12 channel and 16 channel VLZ from the late 90s/early 2k that are built like tanks. I’ve ran into several issues with products purchased “post pandemic”. My Prime Go has some extremely light gain trim and effects knobs that will move if barely bumped. It drives me nuts. I fully expect to see more lemons coming off the line from all companies.

What do you imply that I was saying, don’t understand?

I also have a 1202 VLZPro from late 90’s, scratchy pots early and different other things that broke, only little use from new, and I’m gentle with my gear. Since I like the headphone amp on the VLZPro I hoped the little one should be nice also in this respect, with a tiny footprint. Bought new mid pandemic, don’t know when manufactured.

Simply stating that quality control at the end of the manufacturing process seems to have been a little questionable as of late and this could be the issue regarding your newer VLZ, which could result in entire batches of product being defect.

Also, take into consideration that manufacturing has been moved since our older VLZs were made. However, I don’t think that’s as much of an issue as companies trying to meet demand while dealing with shortages and various supply line issues.

Hence why I wanted to make users aware looking for new gear.

I understand you now.

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I purchased a SC Live 4 for work and the mic channels don’t work properly. There is an audible delay as if there is repeat in the chain somewhere. I never got to the bottom of it and just had to use a Sure radio mic. Shame as I tried for weeks. It had a factory reset and firmware updates. It could be faulty but it’s on a cruise ship and purchased during a drydock on the other side of the world. That’s not going back! I’m not sure what fault could inject a doubled up copy of the microphone back into the system but it happened!

I also had the well documented issue of button lights not coming on every five-or-so boots.

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