These are a lot closer to the quality that Focusrite has been famous for than all that 'budget' crap they put out now.

well dave i ran that piece tonight(ISA428) and just had a drummer friend over. he jammed to some dave matthews covers in his headphones while i tracked. not knowing too much about anything, i used 1 channel for the kick, 1 for the snare, and two for the overheads,and for the rac and floor toms, i used a soundcraft spirit spirit LX7-direct outs.all ran into a firepod in nuendo3.seemed to me the soundcraft sounded as good as the 428,with eq yet available?!?!

i recorded about two tracks by the time i got done fiddlin with the knobs and staring at the cool meters.really hadent even read the manual yet,and i assumed that the 428 would instantly be much better sounding.but that wasnt the case. the LX7's sound seemed to come a little easier.
there are switchable impedance buttons on the front of each channel(low, ISA 110, medium, and high. any suggestive guidelines for matching microphones to possible impedance settings.

I have this unit as an interface to my 002r dongle. Also the ACD card. Both are very good. It's not a preamp you can chrunch up on. Many like it for overheads and the DI. Transparent with warmth. 80db of gain from preamp and seems to be dead quiet.

ISA

I used these pres in a studio I worked at for a while. I remeber having alot of hiss while recording instruments direct. It was also awile ago so I cant recall everything I learned sonic wise about it. For mics I think I remeber it being pretty much a good workhorse pre. And it has pretty face plate!

Hissssssssssssssssss

:o Again about the hissss. I am having the same problem with the Octopre. when I record bass or guitar dir. What the hay man! All the instrument s ive tried are passive so its not a battery. for 2gs yould thinkk id be quiet. Going from a GT direct box into a Dual Path was much quieter.