Here's some 20-20 hindsight. Why would Mackie produce the DL16S when all they needed to do was re-lay out the DL1608 board to fit a stage box and add DCA's and better recording. Instead they removed some features. Same holds true for the DL32R. Why bring out a crippled version of the DL32R. A little creative engineering would have gone a long way. For less or the same $ I would go with the XR18, MR18 or UI24.
No one can tell whether or not they listen to customers. What’s clear is that there has been a decade long run of strategic mistakes:
2012: Mackie introduces their innovative DL1608 at Winter NAMM for $1000. Even though it took them until August of that year to get it into stores, it was nonetheless a big deal at the time and a game changer.
2013: The DL806 was a wasted effort and later discontinued for lack of sales. That energy should have gone into cost reducing the DL1608 instead of removing cheap parts like XLR connectors and crippling it. Mackie takes an entire year to add Lightning connector support leaving users stuck on old iPad models unless they use Apple’s adapter preventing you from locking your iPad in the dock.
2014: DL32R is announced and costs 2.5x the DL1608. Rack mounting made sense for a “headless” product line but now you’ve created a $1500 hole for the competition to fill…
Mackie no doubt panics when Behringer releases their stage boxes this year with integrated WI-FI for as little as $300 and puts an end to their brief 2 year run as the market leader.2015: Releases DANTE card for DL32R.
2016: Mackie releases the DC16 over a year after the DL32R release. It not only costs more than the DL32R you have to factor in the cost of the 2 extra iPads required to make full use of the design.
2016: Another mistake…the ProDX line of iPhone based mixers, again quietly discontinued.
2017: No hardware released in competitive market.
2018: It took Mackie
NEARLY FOUR YEARS to clone the Behringer stage box form factor with the DL16S and DL32S with fewer features and a higher MSRP and NO RECORDING SUPPORT! How does that even happen??? Mackie publishes “roadmap” for Master Fader after failing to deliver on feature set and support promised at product launch.
2019: Mackie announces private MF Beta Program to mollify customers who are now either stuck with version 4 or are missing key features in version 5. Mackie later “gives up” when it announces that MF 5.1 won’t support DC16 and then supports it 8 months later in a subsequent 5.2 release after huge customer bashlash including losing Dan Kury as their biggest advocate.
2020: It takes Mackie 2 years to fix major bugs introduced with MF 5.
2021: DL32R is quietly discontinued. No other activity.
2022: Mackie DL raises prices by a large margin.
In hindsight they should have focused on making the best damn low-cost easiest to use, most powerful entry level digital mixer at an always attractive price point. That’s their forte but unlike Austin Powers, their mojo was stolen from them by Behringer and they never got it back, lost the girl and failed to saved the world.
