I discovered almost immediately that when plugging my overhead condenser mics (Marshall MXL 2003's) into channels 7&8 with phantom power engaged, that a fairly loud buzzing and humming noise came up. The noise slowly faded away after about 10-15 min. I switched chords, outlets, ground scenarios etc. and it still happened after a cold start. The weird thing was that if I engaged the -20 db pad on channels 7&8 the buzz went away, even with the gain all the way up. M-audio sent me a 2nd unit to try to see if the unit was defective. Same results with the 2nd unit. I took the Octane to a local high end recording studio to check it with other mics, cables and power supply. Same results with my mics (Marshall's & Rode) but when some Neumann U87's were used, no buzz. We started trying some other mics with different ohm ratings (ADK-A51's, Oktava mk012's, Shure KSM-141's). Bottom line, any mic less than 200 ohms caused channels 7&8 to buzz. I informed M-audio's tech support of this and they did their own testing of the Octane units at their factory with various mics. Sure enough, they have admitted to me that it is a design flaw. So, if you have an M-audio octane or are looking to buy an Octane be careful about the condensers you use. Anything less than 200 ohms will more than likely cause you a very annoying buzz or a 15 min. warm up time for the noise to go away.

M-S matrix feature is nice in theory but I have not fully tested it yet. The rest of the features are pretty standard for 8 channel pre-amps and work well, with the exception of the phantom power issue mentioned above.

Straightforeword operation and clear manual.

Unit feels and looks well put together.

If you have campatible condenser mics (over 200 ohms impedance) you will be pleased with the units sound and performance. If not, power it up, grab a cup of coffee and wait for the buzz/hum to go away.

Tech support was easy to reach but I was very dissapointed when they admitted the unit had a design flaw they basically said "sorry, we don't plan on doing anything about it"

Active musician/recording

Jazz, Fusion, Progressive

I'm cutting drums through it and I'm happy with it. I also have a hum problem with both of my units though. Early on I found that engaging the M/S switch would eliminate much of the hum and just yesterday discovered that engaging the pad on channel 8 would get rid of it. I just make sure that I put something that could use a pad on 7 and 8 and it's dead quiet.

fabulous, nobody has any bad experiences with it, whys it got such a low rating of 6.2 out of ten?