It does nothing to the sound. As far as my experience, it sounds rather transparent. If you drive it hard it will distort, though. It basically arranges 7 signals in a fixed stereo panorama. Nothing can be changed, not the pan position, not even volume, it's strictly minimal. I was not sure about it being any use when I first got one. I now have at least one in every rack. It needs no learning, no thinking, just use it and you know what it will do. It makes you concentrate on your patch rather than fiddeling with your mixer. A very elegant design.