Behringer's ADA8000, or the Ultragain Pro-8 Digital to give it its full name, is a conceptually simple product that should interest anyone who uses ADAT connectivity within their system. Its mains-powered 1U rack format houses eight mic/line preamps with phantom power, and these feed an oversampling delta-sigma A-D converter, which in turn sends eight channels of 24-bit digitised signal out of the back panel via an ADAT lightpipe connector. These preamps use the same Invisible mic preamp circuitry found in the newer Behringer mixers, and my experience of them so far has been favourable. Phantom power is switchable globally, so the preamps may be used with active DI boxes or capacitor mics that need a 48V power source, and each of the channels has a rotary gain control (with up to 60dB of gain) plus a pair of LEDs to show signal present and clipping. The line input is on a balanced TRS jack and mic/line input selection is accomplished simply by deciding which socket to plug in to.

The Behringer Ultragain Pro 8 Digital ADA8000 Converter is a state-of-the-art 8-channel A/D/A converter with built-in phantom-powered Invisible Microphone Preamplification (IMP) mic preamps. You can connect analog audio signals directly to a multitrack recorder or similar equipment via the integrated ADAT interface “and it takes up only one Rackspace. It will even connect the digital signal of a multitracker via ADAT to the 8 line outputs of the Behringer Ultragain Pro 8 Digital ADA8000. Selectable signal conversion allows processing at 44.1kHz or 48kHz with 24-bit resolution. The ADAT I/O can be operated independently with an identical word clock signal.