Creamware A16 Ultra or Behringer ADA8000

djmooncat · Post by **djmooncat** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:16 am

Hi All,

I am going to AD/DA convertor for my creamware setup. i've been looking at the Creamware A16 and the Behringer ADA 8000. I can buy to Behringers for £330 or get the A16 as a part of a package working out at roughly the same cost. Does anyone have experience with either of these or can make any recommendations.

I've not use either so it's difficult to know which way to go. One thing i liked about the behringer was the built in Microphone pre-amps, however my question would be how good are they and can the be switched off should i get dedicated higher quality pre-amps.

Any info would be very much appreciated.

Regards,

Mark

Post by **irrelevance** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:46 am

How your managing to get the A16 at roughly the same cost is beyond me but regarding your question I would go with the A16 without a doubt. I own and use the ADA8000 and it's fine for my purposes, the mic pre sound good, but a little low in volume. DO you really need 8 mic pre's? I would go for the A16 and with the money your saving get a single mic pre if thats all you need.

djmooncat · Post by **djmooncat** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 3:13 am

Thomann store in germany are selling a pulsar pro for £1021 or you can by a bundle which includes Pro Plus, the A16 Ultra and prodyssey for £1273, so in actual fact it's cheaper, as the synth is 198euro's in its own. Anyway, that's the package i'm thinking of going for.

thanks for the input.

Regards,

Mark

nprime · Post by **nprime** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:19 am

I own and use both.

The A16 has a more open top end and slightly punchier sound.

Only buy the ADA8000 if you need the mic pre's.

Post by **garyb** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:56 am

the A16 is a much higher quality AD/DA. the ADA8000 is a great product if you need the mic pres and are short on money.

CarvinGuitarFreak · Post by **CarvinGuitarFreak** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 12:09 pm

hi,
Go for A16u and use it with ZLink, it's a winner. Then you can chose the preamps that you want as these are constantly being upgraded. More ecomonical in the long term, IMHO

CGF

djmooncat · Post by **djmooncat** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 4:17 pm

CarvinGuitarFreak wrote:hi,
Go for A16u and use it with ZLink, it's a winner. Then you can chose the preamps that you want as these are constantly being upgraded. More ecomonical in the long term, IMHO
CGF

Hey CGF,

could you explain what you mean by the being able to choose the preamps and the fact that they are constantly being upgraded, i don't fully understand the ZLink interfaces and all their capabilities? i may well have missed something

Regards,

Mark

nprime · Post by **nprime** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 4:53 pm

I think he means that with the ADA8000 you are stuck with the mic pre-amps that are built in....whereas with the A16 you will have to purchase a separate mic pre-amp(s), and therefore have your choice of price/quality.

Stevil · Post by **Stevil** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 5:18 pm

i'm currently running 2 ada8000's which have been great to get me into operating multichannel. i like the 1/4 & xlr on the front, phantom power, assignable 8 xlr outs to send if i need to, & adat outs to my creamware card for sound capture. i'm now looking to improve my signal path with higher end pre's.

the Cranesong Spider appears to have all the features i'm looking for but is a huge price jump from what i've been using. are there some other quality ad/da multichannel's with the adat interface you've used with good pre's? reccommend? weren't worth it? great bang for the buck? overpriced? ect?
is the A16 that big of a jump from the ada8000?

eliam · Post by **eliam** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 7:38 pm

Personally, i wouldn't necessarily buy conversion and pres in one box, simply because I prefer to have flexibility, both in preamp choice as well as upgrade possibilities. There are so many choices out there, it gets your head spinning! It all depends on your budget and your requirements. I'm using a Lucid ADA 8824 which I really like, 8 in-8 out, 24 bit up to 48 khz. You can get those units used for a reasonable price. I've heard good reports about the latest echo interfaces, the Yamaha i88x... As for pres, my next purchase will probably be an 8 pres box from www.lineaudio.se . I have one of their mics and it is top notch, so I trust the pres will be as good as the mic, for the price you can't go wrong anyway...

hesnotthemessiah · Post by **hesnotthemessiah** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 10:33 pm

Hi there Mark.

Have you tried these guys? http://www.infinitevortex.com/ I used them to purchase my Scope cards in 2005. They were helpful and also the cheapest dealer I could find.

Post by **garyb** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 11:31 pm

Stevil,
yes the A16's AD/DA is definitely superior to the behringer. the Cranesong is fantastic.

if you're going to spend that much money though, you might as well add an A16 for general patchbay use(you know for the rest of your nice outboard and high end pres that don't have AD onboard).

Stevil · Post by **Stevil** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 9:26 am

if you're going to spend that much money though, you might as well add an A16 for general patchbay use(you know for the rest of your nice outboard and high end pres that don't have AD onboard).

funny you mention that, my first order of business is to improve vocal signal path & i'm looking @ a manley pre that i was thinking i'd run directly in to the xlr in on the card. looks like the a16 would give me a more modular setup though.

Personally, i wouldn't necessarily buy conversion and pres in one box, simply because I prefer to have flexibility, both in preamp choice as well as upgrade possibilities. There are so many choices out there, it gets your head spinning! It

yeah, i'm relatively new to the whole preamp enviornment. i've been reading up on a bunch of options & i'm a bit dizzy @ the moment, hence my post. the all in one box setup seems efficient but i guess the ultimate goal down the road is a to have a variety of mic & preamp combos for various recording tasks. it'll probably take a year or so to get all the spec's where i want em but i'll get there. if saving up for 6 months is going to get me something i'll be happy with for a lifetime so be it.

so you'd both reccommend going with the separate light pipe-ad/da & routing whatever pre's into that?

eliam · Post by **eliam** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 10:44 am

How many inputs-outputs do you need? How many tracks at once do you plan to record? Do you plan on doing pro level tracking? Bear in mind that great productions have been made with mid-level gear. People tend to give too much power to gear when the knowledge of how to use it is paramount. If you use your gear extensively and want to have excellent hi-fi sonics, then I'd say that a high end recording chain is a good investment. Do you need 16 channels though? Personally, I would have no use for so many i-o, but I don't track drums or bands. The day I'll need nore channels I'll go and rent some gear for a week end. The mic choice changes everything, more so than the pre and ad.

Anyhow, take your time, hear as many interfaces and pres as you can, read the forums, take it easy and breathe well, you'll have a great signal chain I'm sure!

Stevil · Post by **Stevil** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 11:14 am

i like having 16 channels. my whole reason for going with creamware was to capture jams. i do mic up the drum kit pretty heavily & run several other instruments line in. guitar, bass & several keyboards all @ once.
on drums i'm currently running 2 mic's on the kick, 2 on snare, 2 overhead & 3 on toms.

the last couple years i've been getting everything online & functional with the creamware system & low end gear for room coverage. i recently started upgrading some of the mic's & feel like some are being held back by the pre's on the ada8000. i'm always looking to improve my sound.

here's a sample jam from a couple months back. (it kicks in around 7 minutes)
mxl, shure & AT on the drums, rhodes thru a pod2.0, bass thru a B V-amp (it has since been replaced by sansamp bass driver). everything going into the ada8000's to CW project over adat.

Stevil · Post by **Stevil** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 4:29 pm

anyone used the Audient ASP008 with CW?

while searching around i ran into this one.
looks to be a similar setup with the pre's & optional adat interface in the $2k range.

valis · Post by **valis** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 6:24 pm

Add in the ADAT option for that Audient and you are looking at close to $2500 street. If you can afford something like that I'm amazed you considered the Behringer.

nprime · Post by **nprime** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:57 pm

I'm having a hard time resolving how you could be looking at anything from Manley and anything from Behringer in the same thread....

minipax · Post by **minipax** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 2:23 am

don't discount the Alesis Ai3! a solid little box

Stevil · Post by **Stevil** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 9:21 am

Add in the ADAT option for that Audient and you are looking at close to $2500 street. If you can afford something like that I'm amazed you considered the Behringer.

i've gained the experience i was looking for when i bought the behringers a few years back & am looking to move on. also my tax bracket has changed a bit from the time they were purchased.

mix shows MSRPs: ASP008, $1,495; ASP008 w/ADAT output, $1,995; ASP008 w/AES and ADAT, $2,195; ADAT option card, $525; and AES option card, $725
http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_audient_asp_microphone/
is the option card separate from the version with the output?

I'm having a hard time resolving how you could be looking at anything from Manley and anything from Behringer in the same thread....

i've been a synth guy most of my life & over the last few years have gotten into outboard recording. i got an invite from EveAnna to tour Manley Labs a while back cuz they're in town & it was an eye opening experience into the world of amplification.