the buzz around here when SP had its forum was that it would be comparable to the sytek- so far no one has posted a comparison- if it had adat optical outs I would buy one, as this would give me 8 extra inputs via adat on my 828 mkii- unfortunately this is not the case...

Hi maintiger,
as for 8 Adat for the 828mkII, you might look into the Behringer. Yes, I know it is a swearword, but in this case I´m actually positively surprised. The preamps are actually much better than expected and the AD as well. Might mention that I do mostly acoustical music. (Classical and big band). Have had good experiences with transformerless condensors, not quite as good with dynamic mics.

Gunnar

I have heard the behringer- a friend of mine brought it over and like you said, we were positively surprised. I haven't needed more than the 12 inputs I currently used in my 828 mkii (2 via spdif, 2 w/ built in pres, 8 analog)
but like you say, it is definitely useable. i suspect that the SP mic pre would be better but like I said, I haven't heard it yet. I do own a sytek though and the sytek is way way better than the behringer- we did do a comparison when we had it in the studio. In fact, even a yamaha mla7 beats the behringer- though not by much, and that was the surprise.