[Steve Fernino]

Drax,

Just re-read your post and picked up on that line. I missed it the first time around.

Still not enough for my liking, though it is a start.... It would be nice for the Rane's, Pioneer's etc to lead the way. Denon has embraced this to a degree, I just do not like their Mixers.... I prefer my MP44. And Yes, I have tried them.

A move to digital coaxial or balanced as a standard on everything but non-entry level or at least on mid-high to high end would be an improvement.... It just doesn't seem likely in any kind of a decent time frame.

Gonna go a little off-topic here....

It amazes me how far ahead the 12V Car Audio industry is compared to the DJ industry sometimes. Car audio took the lead on many things...some was by necessity as the car is one of the noisiest and most difficult environments on the earth to hook up an accurate or noise-free sound system.

Pioneer and Denon are both players in that market...However Pioneer is a much bigger player than Denon is there.

Car audio debuted anti-shock and antiskip CDs and slot cd loading years ahead of our industry.... They even were the first to have mp3 on CDrom players... I had a discussion with an industry rep back in '93 and he told me all about mp3...(While we were discussing DCC, MD, and DAT)he just didn't call it that.
He told me how the future was going to be compressed data on a small digital "card storing 100 or more songs each". He was pretty close, as there are "cards" today that store mp3 audio.

In fact I have a system called DDL (Direct Digital link) by Eclipse that uses all digital cables....and even had pink noise, RTA, and digital time alignment....Hell I even have a DAT player. I bet some don't even know what that is...LOL

This system came out in 1991.
Now Balanced XLR and / or Coaxial Digital is not uncommon on a lot of Car Audio equipment.... In fact, for years, companies like USD have been modifying RANE equipment to 12v for use in that environment for just that reason....Go Figure.