I've had many good experiences with
Mackie...we currently use the good ol' classic
Mackie 1604VLZ-PRO for our
FOH board along with a pair of Italian made SRM450's, but that's changing this summer with a shiny new TT24 and EAW KF650's
From what I've heard, the Onyx series is as good as, or some people say better than, the already fantastic VLZ-PRO series. To tell you the truth, I haven't heard one before, but I do hear that the Perkins EQ beats hands down anything
Mackie has ever made. And the firewire works great too, according to reports. Be warned however, the firewire output taps the signal pre EQ, pre
fader, and pre insert (just about pre everything except the
trim). Kind of a shame they didn't put in a
button that would make the firewire output post
fader, since that would be ideal for a recording only environment.