Soundcraft Spirit m12 on E-bay: messed up clipping light

[Ryan Ferris]

I just bought a used Spirit m12 mixer on E-Bay and I received it on Friday. I've tried it on two sessions and it sounds fine (it's replacing an m8 and it doesn't sound any different from that). The problem is that the clipping light for channel 6 sometimes lights up even when the gain for that channel is all the way down. I've even had it trigger the light when nothing was plugged into that channel. When I contacted the seller he told me the following:

"I'm glad your liking it other than the clip LED. I don't know that it was doing that while I had it, but it has been "mothballed" for a little while now. I wouldn't worry about it too much - the device which controls the clip LEDs and the meters are OpAmps which aren't in the signal path. Chances are, they're misreading the voltage going to the mic pre and indicating a clip when it's just not there. Since the opamp isn't in the signal path, it shouldn't have any effect on the sound."

Since I know relatively nothing about the innards of such mixers, I just wanted to check with those of you who know more about this. Does that sound right to you? If it's not going to effect the sound quality, then I don't care about miss triggerings of the clipping light. I use the preamps on this board to go into my DAW and I primarily use the clipping indicator on my audio interface to set my incoming levels.

BUT if it means that the board is breaking and will lead to other problems, then I think I should try for a refund because the seller said it was in excellent condition.

What do you think?

Thanks!

-Ryan