Audient Sumo Summing Amp with 002 Rack?

[Ken P]

don't know how new this unit is, but i just saw an ad for this in a trade mag and it peeled my wig back! i imediately hit the web to check it out and found the home site for it HERE which included a link to the pdf manual. i have been pondering a unit like this and was just curious how many LE users out there use a summing bus or even an external console rather than mixing down inside PT. i get good results with my mixes now, but i am always looking for ways to make them better, just like the rest of us

the thing i don't quite get is the unit is 16 in's as 8 stereo pairs, and the first 4 channels are mono. in theory, if i had a 16x8 bus mixer connected to my 002 like a tape machine, i would bus some things to the bus groups as stereo pairs and some channels would go straight to the 2 bus master... in essence should i approach this sumo unit the same way? the 1-4 mono inputs throw me off on this unit. basically i just wanted to throw this 2-bus summing amp concept out for discussion with LE systems. any thoughts?