Behringer X32 Compact

Firstly Don't be out off this product because of previous opinions and biases about Behringer this is a completely new ball game. As soon as I unpacked and saw it I thought wow !!! this is different, it ouses quality and sophistication.There is no in depth manual available yet but frankly I got it going without even looking at the instructions, to go through all it's features would be beyond a simple review but I particularly liked the effects section which really does have eight full effects racks that are divided into 4 send and return types and 4 insert types. On the down side and I suspect this is because I do a lot of very simple shows with simple setups you can only control the first eight inputs with the first eight sliders so if you want to control input nine you have to start layer hopping. For me the most basic of all basic setups would be sixteen inputs controlled by sixteen sliders and I can't understand why it can't do this (although Joe Sanborn of Behringer has said he will ask if there can be a firmware update to change it) I'm sending mine back for this reason alone, everything else is fantastic. I suspect that sound engineers who have worked on digital desks a lot will have no problem with this but to me potentially having to control forty inputs with eight faders and having to hop through nine layers to do it is too much.
----> The firmware has been updated and you can now use all 16 faders as input if you so choose.