Help choosing new Preamp and Converters!

[gorath23]

I'm upgrading some of my equipment in the next couple of months and I'm not entirely sure which is the best route to go. I know many of you are proponents of 'let the recordings do the talking' rather than the gear, but I'd still like to move up a little from my Presonus Inspire, especially as I record a lot of acoustic guitar.

Basically I have a budget of between £600-700 and my needs are fairly specific.
Although for the time being I'm only realistically going to need a max of 2 inputs, I'd like the option of expanding this later on, so an interface with maybe 6-8 line ins. ADAT/Spdif optional. I'm trying to futureproof myself as well, I'd like a jump in quality now, and also be able to use this stuff for the next 3-5 years without wanting to change up, only expand on what I have.

My original gearlist was fairly simple:

FMR RNP + Echo Audiofire 8 (this seems to be the best combo of preamp and converters that you can buy within the budget)

However, what with the credit crunch etc, prices have risen and my budget seems fairly tight now..... Plus I have not been able to find either the FMR or Echo used, and I've been searching for about 4 months now.

I've been looking at the behringer ADA8000, not for the preamps but because, by all accounts, it has some really nice converters in it. I'm not really sure how to integrate it into a setup though (like how does it all connect and 'work') and whether I could get a firewire interface with ADAT + Berry for less than the Echo.....?

So.... anyone have any ideas? Or should I just stick with my original gearlist?

 

[gorath23]

No ideas guys? I've been reading up about the Yamaha i88x which seems to do everything I want in one package, really nice preamps and conversion plus lots of I/O for expansion.

 

[Proggm]

I've been looking at the behringer ADA8000, not for the preamps but because, by all accounts, it has some really nice converters in it.

Mod it to bypass the preamps and you’ll have a tremendously cheap and kickass converter. Recently, some guy in gearslutz put the Behringer ADA8000 against the Lynx Aurora 16. In a blind ABX test w/samples posted, everyone concluded that the Behringer sounded better. The members were like “wtf, the 199 usd converter won vs. the 2500 usd???!!?”… Then it was figured out that the ADA8000 was a carbon copy of a high end converter, so, there you go: don’t waste money on some overpriced converters. I recently bought a Prism Orpheus (5k usd) expecting for a very notorious step-up (I had a Digi 003 Control Surface) and, while the difference can definitely be heard, it wasn’t worth it… I mean, for that money I could buy some astounding preamps that should make much more difference than the converters.

 

[gorath23]

Yeah, I hate to say it but I often hang around on GS (although I never post). It was that infamous thread that turned me onto the ADA8000, I think its an Apogee copy? I'm not sure you need to modify it in order to just use the Converters, as running it through ADAT you can set it as the Master clock.....anyway, thats what I wanted clarification on. I've just scored a deal for an i88x which should be all I need in an interface (hopefully!). Thanks for the response man.