Behringer ADA8000 Ultragain Pro-8 Digial Preamp

It is easy to use, plug in your adat, plug in your mic and you are good to go. Just hope that it will actually start up, it is made by Behringer.

Muddy with no low or high end. Compared to my digi 002 this thing is horrible. Another reviewer said they sounded better than the digi (maybe they should sell all their equipment and stop making music, because they have no ear).There is no high end shine, I thought at first I had some massive roll off or I had plug it through my eq with everything except the mids cut out. Now if you have junk mics you might not hear this, but anyone with a half decent mic will be disappointed. These pres are worse than my digi, worse than my Mackie, and even worse than the Behringer mic100.

It is Behringer, if it doesn't break within a week or two you are ok. But before than you never know when it will blow up. I bought their 4 channel mixer for field recording. I went through two of them before I exchanged it for a Mackie.

Worthless, they tell you to go where you bought it for help.

If you are in need for eight more channels either buy the Presonus or Focusrite stuff. Now if you don't care that your music will sound muddy and muffled than go ahead and buy this. But, I promise you it will be a disappointment.

It's simple, as long as you set the sync properly...and make sure your lightpipes are clicked into place.

Very clean and transparent. Get a nice mic for this one....Even a tube mic for colour.

Only had it two weeks.

Same as above comment.

I use this unit to connect my booth to my control room. Not only do I forego the need for a sea of cabling passing through the walls, but I get "0" rf interference, of course. Because I record alone most of the time, having the Ada8000's preamps in my booth is actually very convenient. I connect the ADA8000's outs to the main in and aux ins on a Behringer Powerplay 4 channel headphone amp, which allows me to set up 4 discrete headphone sends from Logic. In the control room the toslink cables are attached to my TascamFw1884. An incredible clean-sounding, simple, two room setup, which can handle most pro jobs I do. I can't think of a cheaper, high quality sounding, two room studio setup.

Anyone can hook this thing up and it's easy to use and sounds great!

Better than the 002 pres IMO, sounds pretty close using the same mics on higher end equipment.

(to the previous person who said "click fest when you try recording")

You need to set the clock source to ADAT in whatever software you are using (ex. protools under hardware setup), otherwise, YES, you get clicking. If you leave the clock source Internal, it will click.

I actually read the manual anyways unlike some and set it up properly and perfectly.

Never had to contact them and will probably never have to, this thing is bullet proof.

unit is to the point . If youve hooked up a unit like this before its like screwing in a light bulb

THIS UNIT IS BAD > I hooked it up to my 8 outs on my mpc and its a click fest when you try recording . Ive had better sound come out of a 1970 casio keyboard.

had it for 1 day

I Dont even know how this unit got past the assemble line .

just don't forget the optical and word-clock cables (with terminator) and all you do then is plug it in and use it!

I bought it to catch the tracks that would normally spill over my 8 inputs on my motu 896. i love that I can capture those scratches now!

average-mediocre, but I've used great river, neve, trident, etc.. pres through apogee, lucid, mytek, etc before. the API a2d was my first choice, but that would be ten times the price and one eighth the i/o! I would agree that it does not blossem in the lowest register, but that is not why i bought mine. i got mine to be able to keep those tracks recorded and seperate that have always been considered extra in my project studio. like room mics and scratch vocals. I made the decision to choose this because I would rather keep mediocre sounding scratch tracks than not be able to at all.

got it 3 days ago...

never dealt.

just get one... so that you can stop thinking about it. You can use the new door that has been opened to make money and justify that apogee! next year..

Very easy to setup, clocks right in. 8 Analog ins and outs,ADAT,XLR etc. A great feature is you can use the separate ins and outs simultaneously as long as your WORD clock is identical. Think about the routing for effects. Phantom power, wish every channel had its own switch, but it's not a big deal to me. The preamps are true and clean. If you're not getting high or low end out of it it's called user error.

I have 2 of these units running on orig Hammerfall 9652 with the 1st 8 ch covered by RME I/O cards. Are the converters better in the RME cards? Yep, and they have their own character. Are the Behringers bad? No, they are tranparent. Sorry, but it's a fair assessment. They don't get in the way and pass yr signal without adding any character.
With this setup combined with the powerful DSP on the RME cards, the direct to hard disk path barely tickles the computer overhead.

Been running them for 1 1/2 yrs, started out with 1, got another, got a 3rd for mobile, 'cause you can take the XLR outs on the back and feed them to anything, like even using 2 for a simple 2-ch practice recording.
I've had good luck with the performance and reliability of all the Behringer products I've been using. Gets an 8 because I don't beat it up.

Not needed

Waiting for the next reincarnation of these so I can get some more.

Wish it had a separate switch for phantom pwr on every channel. Otherwise all I got to say is: Put the sound in the mike before you blame anybody for what you get out.

Very easy to use.8 Analog ins/8Analog outs XLR and TRS and ADAT 8 I/O and WORD clock.Phantom power switch for all the inputs.The preamps are good.A fair product.

I'm using it with my RME 9652 with AEB 8 I/O and EMU 1820m and they all work together like a charm!As i said, pristine sound quality.The preamps are above mid spec and the sound is neutral not so warm like EMU's preamps that i like more.I tested with an analyzer (not from Behringer) and the sound was very linear on the ADA-8000!(not like a previous reviewer wrote...)For the money i don't think you can find something better exept EMU's last products...

No problem with the ADA-8000 whatsover.I'm using it with the RME 9652 basically on live recordings,if i need more i/o.The oldest product i have from Behringer is a Ultrafex II from 1995.It works without any problem 10 years now!My Eurodesk MX-8000 from 1997 EVERY DAY (!),should i say more?

I've heard some people had some problems with Behringer products.Until now i don't had any!

I'm running a pro studio for about 7 years.Sometimes you don't have to spend more money to work professional.I think this piece of hardware works excellently for what it's make for...to give me more input channels for my RME.I like it

This product is extremely easy to use. It doubles as an analog preamp with an unneccessary A/D/A phase if you end up in a pinch for some extra pre-amps. Just patch the digital output to the digital input with a lightpipe cable.

8 Ins (xlr or 1/4") and a reasonable amount of gain for most purposes.

8 Outs on XLR running at professional levels.

The manual provides important technical data.

The pre's and the AD's (which are linked internally) sound good. I do not hesitate to use this on any source where I would normally have the 80Hz rolloff on a board inserted.

Unfortunately, I've had 3 sessions come to my desk which were recorded on this unit, all suffering the same problem. No low end. I'm guessing there's a capacitor somewhere filtering it out before the A/D stage, but I haven't actually looked at the board.

The pleasant side effect of this flaw is a lower noise floor and a higher bit depth for sources which will have their lows removed later in the mix process anyway.

Vocals sound good. Guitars sound good. Everything sounds good, but good luck trying to coax low end out of a kick drum or bass. This is the main reason for my harsh rating in this category.

The global phantom power switch is wearing out (scratchy contacts). Good switches and pots are expensive.

I don't trust any piece of gear to a gig without a backup.. specially not in this price range, but I have not had any serious problems.

This unit has been very useful to me. I use it to this day, and because of the prohibitive cost of competing units, I don't anticipate replacing it anytime soon, although I am dissapointed that I will have to purchase an additional 4 channels of pre's and A/D's in order to adequately capture kick drums, low toms and bass guitars.

I am rating this equipment without considering the price. I work daily on $20,000 mixing boards, so although I have scored this unit low, it is being held to a high standard. If your intention is to record demo's, don't hesitate. Buy now. If your intention is to build a recording studio, look elsewhere. These would only be useful as supplimentary pre's, or for limited purposes.

Hook it up and dial it in. Manual is very good. The sound is excellent. Transparent, meaning no color whatsoever. Yeah, i know that's why we spend big bucks for preamps, for the individual character, but this unit combines great preamping for a mike/line and spits it out ADAT lighpipe. C'mon!

No noise, great headroom. I am using 2 of these units with a RME Hammerfall WinXP computer system in Nuendo. I believe the sound I want is in the mikes and how they're placed, and the ADA8000 stays out of the way. I wish it went to 96/24 but that's for a new model I guess.
Also, I use both the 8-ch input and 8-ch output cards from RME in tandem with these units, and I would consider the converters in the same class.
I do mainly live recording and project demos with my setup.

Had these units over a year now. Not a whimper. So no real problems to rate.

Not bad - I called to get some specs on making a 75-ohm woord clock
cable & they emailed me what I needed.

I suspect that when they come out with the next model with higher res and more features that I will pick them up immediately. If I lost these units, I would have to spend 3 or 4 times the money to buy something comparable, so I would re-purchase these units.

Very easy to use. Connects to audio interface via ADAT. The manual is very straight forward and short.

This thing sounds great. It's 8 IMP Mic Pre's with A/D and D/A conversion. The preamps sound very transparent, almost "invisible." It's no Rupert Neve Design preamp, but then again, 8 channels of Neve preamps and A/D/A conversion would cost about the same as a new car. Bang for the buck is what it's all about, and this thing BANGS!

Very dependable. I have never had a problem with it. It does exactly what I need it to do all the time.

This unit is very reliable, so I haven't had to deal with customer support. If I did, I'm sure the wonderful technicians at Behringer would be very helpful.

Overall, I think this unit is amazing for anyone needing more analog inputs and has an ADAT interface. Buying this unit allowed me to cut my very unpredictable vintage Studiomaster mixer out of the mix. I can multi-track live and mixdown within Cubase. It's a wonderful bit of kit. The preamps sound great. I use it to add 8 inputs to my MOTU 2408 mkII. I will proably buy more considering I have 3 banks of ADAT with my MOTU. The only problems that I have are:

1. The unit only has sampling rates of 44.1/48kHz. 96kHz would be nice.
2. The gain switch is stepped. I would have preferred a smooth gain control. Sometimes input can be too loud or too soft. That just means more work for me, and I'm lazy.
3. The phantom power is global. This isn't really a bad thing, but individual phantom power would be nice.
4. The clock switch is on the back. Yet again, more work for me.

All in all, I think anyone with an extra $200 +/- should buy one. Behringer makes great products, and I'm completely sold on them as a company. Everyting that they make is a good value.