well, u might be able to find a JoeMeek VCTwinQcs used for about $7-800 & if i remember correctly, the daughtercard for digital output was about another $200 or so...could be a hard find though.

You could try the ART Digital MPA - dual channel with digital outs built in (one of which is S/PDIF). It's around 600 dollars at most online gear shops. I tried one awhile back and didn't like it but you may find it useful.

Ted Fletchers new company might make what you are looking for,they have a product mighty similar to the old Joe Meek VC Twin.

the m-audio DUO is a cheap 2 channel preamp with SPDIF out. It is actually intended to be a USB audio interface (so it also has headphone monitoring) but i just use the SPDIF out right now. I bought it so i could use it with a laptop down the road for remote recording with the USB connection. It has the preamp ins as well as line ins that bypass the pres.

the preamps are nothing special but they give a nice clean signal. worth checking out for a couple hundred bucks.

ART has one, but I can't remember the model name.

The ART unit is the Digital MPA. Link removed

DBX also has the 376...but I don't know how much $$ it is though. I'm sure it's under $1k.

http://www.dbxpro.com

The Apogee MiniMe is $1165 at Bayview Pro Audio.
Pretty sure it has softlimit and you can access the pres and converters seperately
Roly

The Apogee Mini-Me might be just what you need. You should ask Opus down at the Computer Forum about it. He works there. David

Yeah!..if you can get the mini-me around $1100.00 save up the extra $100.00 there's really no other 2 chan. mic pre/converter even close and it does have the soft limiting feature.

the DBX 376 is a mono tube channel strip Pre/EQ/Comp/DeEsser/dig.outs.... the 386 is the 2 channel version pre/SPDIF only...both units are not very good especially the digital options which sound no better than a digi001 which is decent at best.

research the Apogee

DBX386- $300 at GC. The 376 mentioned above is a single channel strip. I use the 386 at times and it's an underated pre with a rather good A-D converter-Richie

PreSonus makes a Digitube mic pre w/ an s/pdif out. It's a hybrid, and I don't know how it sounds, but it's $250 at GC right now.

Just to repeat a response I placed on my other post thread .....

Apparently, the Focusrite Trackmaster does offer an alternative. There is an "ADC External Input" on the back of the unit that allows you to access the second "spare" channel of the stereo digital output. So, I could use another preamp to plug into the "ADC External Input" on the Focusrite and use the Focusrite itself to act as a pre amp. This would allow me access to both of the Q10's SPDIF tracks! WOO-HOO! Ok, I realize the Focusrite isn't a Neve or API .... but it does what I want at a sub-astronomical price. And hopefully this puts me somewhere between the quality of the Digitube and the Apogee MiniMe. There may be other strips that offer this but they sure don't advertise it! I only found this out by downloading the Trackmaster user's guide.

Mini-Me - hands down.

Best 2 channel mic pre sub 2 grand! At $1,100 it's a steal and everyone should have one.

Sling a Mini-Dac on the other end and see how good your recordings and monitors really are!

G