Thanks everyone for all this valuable input. Our venue does more than musical theater, but that is the majority. We aren't trying to meet riders, just want a good board for in-house use, and if outside groups want to use it. I still have a lot of research to do, but I think Digico is probably out of price range, and probably going to have a tough sell buying something discontinued. Is Midas replacing these models with something new or getting out of that product range?
There have been "leaked" pictures of the new Midas Pro### prototypes. Looks like the lovechild of M32 and Pro X but there has been no actual info released by Music Group. Perhaps introduced at this fall's Audio Engineering Society convention/show or in Jan at Winter NAMM... or maybe it's all smoke and mirrors, who knows?
I had a physically proximate chat with a Midas support rep who didn't answer my question of "what happened to Kyle Chirnside?" But he alluded to the new Midas being released "real soon now" (which was said a year ago, too) and a major announcement for TurboSound.
The price issue for your needs is channel count. Simply put, there's no cheap way to do this. The inexpensive-but-capable mixers currently max out at 32 inputs. Depending on how you handle orchestra/playback/utility audio it might be simpler to have those on a sub-mixer and feed L/R and a couple of foldback lines into the main mixer. Using the M32, you could bring 6 submixer lines back in via the main mixer's "AUX" inputs and keep all 32 XLR/AES main mixer inputs for your actor mics.
Edit ps: A friend of mine was audio director for the Tulsa Performing Arts Center and they ended up with a seriously DANTE networked Yamaha CL/QL system that he and house staff installed and provisioned. The PAC has multiple performance and meeting spaces (2 actual theaters) and they're able to send/receive audio between all of them. This was an upgrade from PM5D mixers in the theaters and Mackie analog in the other rooms; the facility users are pleased with the capabilities.
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