Erik:
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In my experience, the IAM-81008 is a fine active mixer, but it is a poor choice for an SA's 1st mixer, instead I would use an IAM-82028. Of course, there are much better active mixers than the IAM-8 series for this application.
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The question here is, how much dynamic range do you really need? If your concern is dynamic range, then your option would be using passive mixers.??
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In the end, the right decision lies in the balance between dynamic range, bandwidth, ease of implementation and costs. The best thing about building your own test equipment is that you decide which performance parameters are really important to you, therefore you can control the performance parameters to make the best decision.
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Some food for thought:
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Christian W.
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