But I think the original poster is worried about whether or not the 1/4" inputs are just padded inputs to the mic amps, thus having extra gain staging and circuits in the path - which is not the best thing if you're coming out of a nice outboard signal chain. The way I dealt with it was to just put all the inputs on my patch bay and mainly use inputs 5 through 8. I primarily do overdubs at my place, though, and rarely need more than 4 simultaneous inputs. YMWV