cool, thanks tim, my mics put out a pretty hot signal, i had some good experience with my mp-2 at close proximity to the PA, i can get the vu meters pusing all the way across the scale, so the v2 has to be used at low gain, like last night all i could do was 15db of gain, no trim, and the green lights(-14db) were on the whole time with the red light coming on every so often, and the ad500e at about 3/4 of possible gain, but it al came out well and was very pleased with this combo, so thanks and +T for the info tim