Thanks, Mark!
There is one room with many speakers, I want to control individual volumes of these speakers. The screening room will also be used to spatially create 5.1 and 6.1 type of audio mixes for DVDs and Sony HDCAM tapes, and for that of course the physical mixer is a good idea.
Of coruse, I also will have a 19-inch touchscreen LCD monitor there, so I suppose instead of actual, physical line sliders, this controling business can also be done "virtually" on screen. The line-level would have to be broken by the mixer, or I can perhaps get a pre-amp with a PC-based utility program, install this and run individual volumes through the PC (and the touchscreen).
So, PC or DVD or HDCAM or whatever audio signal IN first, but this would go directly to the pre-amp/audio processor. Then, take the individual (decoded and "processed" lines ot from the pre-amp via XLR, run it IN & OUT the Mackie mixer (for the volume control and further eQ, as needed), and then on to the power amps. Okay, then.
I would not buy any pre-amp that does NOT have XLR balanced but only unbalanced RCA connections. On the other hand, the more proper way would be to go via AES/EBU digital via XLR into a digital mixer. Blackmagic Design now has a PCI-e connected external BOB (break-out box) MULTIBRIDGE STUDIO that actually takes IN and OUT 12-independent channels of AES-EBU D-auio via XLR connections!
