Behringer ADA8000 Ultragain Pro 8-Channel A/D D/A Converter

Feature:
simple. line ins, line outs, volume, phantom power & the adat connections. it's a great interface for my creamware card. i can route audio pretty much any way i want with this thing.

Quality:
the only thing that bugs me is the volume knobs. they dont quite line up uniformly so if you are trying to boost in stereo (say 2 mics or a stereo in), you have to check levels elsewhere or trust your ear. otherwise it's solid. not top of the line by any means but anyone shopping in this price range should expect that.

Value:
good bang for the buck if you want multiple inputs & have an adat friendly soundcard.

Desirability:
perfect solution for my multi input problem. i wanted to use my creamware card to capture jams. drums, guitar, keys, ext... with 2 of these connected to the adat pipes on my creamware card i capture 16 channels of audio at once. straight to the hard drive. it's a clutch position in my setup.

Sound:
sound is clean & flat. doesnt colour the tone positive or negatively. i'm sure more expesive pre's have more oomph to them, but for the price this thing is great.

Ease of Use:
it's pretty basic. all controls are there. i have yet to play with the word clock. be sure to send adat light pipe both ways & slave it.

Support:
havent dealt with behringer yet. so far no trouble with any of their gear.

Overall:
only reason i can see to replace this is if i start recording past it's 48khz limit which seems kinda pointless at the moment. i'd like to pick up a higher end mic pre for vocals & lead instruments & keep this for drums & synths.

Feature:
I would give this a 10, but there is one thing I think it is lacking. There's no switch to connect the inputs to the outputs for use as an analog mic pre. The Behringer is basically two units in one. The mic preamps on the front convert into optical digital TOSlink OUTPUT. The XLR outputs on the back carry whatever signal is coming in from the TOSlink INPUT. The circuits are separate. I bought this primarily for use as a live mic pre-amp (8-in, 8-out). Without a TOSlink cable to slave the INPUT to the OUTPUT, it doesn't work as a live mic pre-amp. Fortunately, I had an optical cable with me when I bought it, because I bought it the day of a concert I was running sound for. Not a big deal, since it's CHEAP, sounds GREAT, and wasn't intended as a plain 8-in/8-out mic pre. On that note, it's a terrific mic preamp for running live sound.

Quality:
Well constructed, solid metal. As road-worthy as the rest of my rack-mount gear.

Value:
Look at the competition. Hands down, this is an unbeatable value. None of the 8 input mic pre's in this price range provide ADAT optical in's/out's. Use this for live sound, take it home and use it for digital recording. I like it!!

Desirability:
It's aesthetic in a utilitarian cold-steel-kind-of-way. Clean lines, simple layout, brushed metal. Looks solid, feels solid, inspires confidence. It's not "sexy" like Focusrite or Avalon mic pre's, but it's not competing with that high-end market.

Sound:
Clean, clear, pure. Far, far better than my Behringer low-end mixer.

Support:
Never had to deal with them, but have a friend who has. He's very happy. He had a bad V-Amp, they sent him the rackmount pro version as a replacement which he was thrilled about. Have used Behringer products for about 7 years now. Never had problems with mine.

Overall:
I like it cause it was a very good price, it saved my butt a few hours after buying it (live concert needed mic pre), works as advertised, and it does two things for me. (1) Live analog/analog mic pre for live sound. (2) Analog/digital 8-channel conversion for recording studio.