Love to see Glenn Coleman make this.

[Peter Baird]

Imagine a high quality passive monitor controller that also allowed one to passively sum (and monitor) 2 pairs of inputs. You could hook up four outputs of an HD I/O, send the mix on the first two, the PFL on the second two, and be able to PFL just by hitting the solo button on your surface (as long as you have the AFL/PFL Mutes set correctly in the I/O Setup). All this while maintaining sonic integrity and taking advantage of how dramatically better the HD's D/As are than the 192s were.

It's sort of what the XMON does now without the exotic switching. This appeals to me because I tend to get carried away nesting submixes within submixes and destructive solo safe just doesn't cut it when you want to hear an individual source inside a complex mix. Not to mention being able to audition a naked reverb return. And I'd prefer to do this on the same set of speakers I'm working on to maintain a sense of context.

The box doesn't really need any frills. A decent headphone amp, main and small speaker select, and an aux input for iTunes. I'm kind of surprised that with all the monitor controllers on the market nobody seems to have paid any attention to how PTHD plumbs the PFL signal--they all seem to be either/or when selecting inputs.

This box would be tailor made for people working on smaller HD rigs who still insist on zero compromises in the signal path. I'd pay $800-900 for one.

Peter