I would differ on reviews and whether there's an audible difference between good mixers. I'm really disappointed by the lack of attention sound quality is given in reviews - I'd love half a review to be purely on the colouring, like reviews of amplifiers or speakers. Sometimes (and I'm not commenting on your point makar1, just chewing the fat), DJ reviews just cite the resolution and frequency ("this is 48khz/24bit so is as good as it gets"). This is like evaluating a car by stating how high the speedometer goes. In my opinion sound quality is the invisible elephant in the room that no-one realizes affects them. And this isn't just for wierdo geeks with oxygen free silver interconnects (um..technicaltitch looks furtively), greats like Gilles Peterson and DJ Scruff travel with a lorry load of delicious kit because every little hint of quality you can squeeze out makes a difference to people's perception, even if when you ask them they'd claim to enjoy music from laptop speakers just as much.