Behringer ULTRAGAIN PRO-8 DIGITAL ADA8000

The Behringer ADA8000 is probably already known to most, especially in the home/project studio market, as it's by no means a new product. However since mine recently died (adat out stopped working), I have been looking at alternative products lately, and it has since crossed my mind that a perfect replacement for a Behringer ADA8000 is... a Behringer ADA8000. I couldn't find any reviews on here so I thought I'd add one, in case anyone was in the market for one and wanted the opinion of someone who has used it for about four years.

For about US$170 (new on ebay), this one rack space piece of gear offers 8 channels of mic pre, and 8 channels of AD/DA conversion at 44.1 or 48kHz. The mic pres have phantom power, but this is not individually selectable - it is either on for all 8 channels or off. On the front face of the unit, each channel has an XLR input and a TS unbalanced line input (however the line input does not bypass the circuitry of the pre amp - it is still affected by the pre's gain control).

Metering is taken care of via two lights for each channel; one to indicate there is signal present, the other to indicate the channel is clipping. Considering the size of the unit, this is a sensible approach and I haven't had any trouble with it, especially as I (like the majority of people, I'd imagine) can monitor the signal in my DAW. The adat I/O and XLR analogue outputs are located on the back of the unit, along with wordclock in, an adat/wordclock in switch, and a 44.1/48 switch for when the unit is being used as the master.

In terms of sound, the unit holds its own with the pre amps/converters in my Digi 002. The pre amps become a little noisy when boosting quiet signals, but that's par for the course at this level. The volume also jumps up radically on the last step of the gain pot, but I haven't found that to be a serious issue. I haven't used the unit with external pre amps, but the quality of the converters seems to be quite good. There is an interesting thread here on gearslutz comparing it to a Lynx Aurora converter in a shootout. Worth a look if you're interested in the ADA8000 mainly for its converters:

Lynx Aurora 16 vs Behringer ADA8000

As far as reliability is concerned, after four years without a hitch, the adat out on mine stopped working. I don't want to read too much into this though, as I've had far more expensive pieces of gear stop working on me in less time.

Conclusion:

Although the sound of this unit is far from special, it gets the job done, which is fine considering the features and the price-point. In fact when you consider its just over US$20 per channel, it's amazing that it sounds passable at all. If you're broke and need to add 8 channels to your rig, I'd say go for it. I think I'm going to. Again...