This is really great. There really is a dearth of 8 port midi boxes. For us hardware folks, an extension of midex8 usability is a lifesaver. I’ve been looking for midex8 replacements for a long time now and have been largely disappointed. I have a load of midi keybaords and modules and I’m not getting rid of any of it. I love my hardware.
The problem with the contenders is that nothing is really as good as a midex8. There’s plenty of forum posts / reviews noting problems with Motu boxes on PCs. The motu boxes also will not give the tight timing we get from midex8s. The ESI use windows drivers, which have some performance problems (no multi client capability, corrupted SysEx transfers when large blocks are transferred, 1 mS latency between each event when they are sent over multiple ports - not cool with an 8x8 box). The Roland um-3g boxes only have 3 ports. You could chain three together. But, alas, the un-3g boxes are not multiclient - so you can’t run two programs (like cubase and a patch editor) at the same time.
Bottom line - nothing beats the midex8 with Cubase. Nothing.
For the programmers that wrote the drivers on their spare time - THANKS!!! We love you <3 
-Tom
