[tvent]

Allan,

The Control 24 definitely has less than stellar mic pre's. I thought they were pretty bad back before I even had any really great preamps.
Also, the Control 24 is not an interface to the computer, or an AD/DA converter. So, you will HAVE to have an actual interface (like the 192.)
It is a decent control surface that happens to have 16 arguably run-of-the-mill mic pre's, a crummy 8 channel stereo submixer, and a not-so-great monitoring switcher/section. The best thing I did with mine was to bypass all parts of it's analog sections and use it solely as a control surface.

It is important to know though, that the 192 does not have mic pre's on it at all. It's analog sections are all line level, so if you need a microphone level input you have to use an exterrnal preamp of some sort between the mic and the 192's input - regardless of the cable.

My suggestion is to get better mic pre's and monitoring section at the first opportunity that you get, but absolutely DO NOT pass up the opportunity to record good music just because the Control 24's mic pre's aren't great. Great music recorded through crummy mic prr's is always better than crummy music recorded through amazing preamps. Performance is the most important part of the equation.