MR816 w/external Pre's via ADAT

Hi y’all

Sorry for another topic about the MR816 and external pre’s!
I know about the not being able to bypass the internal preamps via the 1-8 inputs… and that the Inserts are the only to bypass the unit’s pres but unbalanced…

I want some good external pre’s maybe 2 or 3 to add to my MR816 in my upcoming project studio… I am not too happy about going into the inserts?> not sure why tho…

I am gonna need more than 8 channels anyway so i would have bought something like an octopre or digimax or possibly another MR816 to add another 8 channels via ADAT.
Now i am thinking of rather buying 3 or 4 really nice high end-ish preamps and connecting those to an adat unit or ad unit and using them digitally with the steinberg;s preamps…

Does anyone do this? what kind of cheap hardware solutions am i looking at?
Would I still be using the mr816’s conversion if the pre’s are going into an AD converter and again into the Steinberg’s AD section?

hope u can help me out! :slight_smile:

The only ‘cheapish’ solution I know, is the Ferrofish A16, but anything connected through ADAT uses it’s own AD-conversion (ADAT is a digital protocol).

What about things that connect via Spdif?