I own the behringer mxb1002, and I was surprised at how good it sounds. I'm new to taping and wasn't able to go top line to start. My desire is to do matrix mixes whenever possible, and the behringer gave me the option to "do it all" although be it lower end. One thing that I don't like is that the phantom is 24v on ac and only 18v on dc. I ended up selecting my mics based on the ability to handle an 18v phantom. I have Rode nt5's. They fit this requirement, hit my pricepoint, and are a matched stereo pair. So far I like them. They work well as matrix stage mics. I just recorded a local latin/jazz/fusion band with my matrix set up, and it sounds great. Maybe if I was going to 24bit it would suck, but to 44.1/16 via a jb3 it sounds great. My first matrix was jeff austin and chris castino in madison on 3-18-04 and it is posted at the archive. Unfortunately I don't have the software to do alot of the things I would have liked, but you should be able to get a feel for the mixer nonetheless. The soundman threw me a lot of curveballs, and with my first matrix I wasn't ready for them... but you can check out the show if you want to know. The biggest dilema of my cheap-ass software is my bitrate conversion. Untill I get decent software, I am recording at 44.1. However this 3-18 show I did at 48k and if anyone would like my untouched 48k files for a comparison I would hapily get them to you.
Matt