As the name suggests, the 8Pre features eight combination mic/line pre-amps, each offering up to +57dB of gain and with phantom power arranged in two blocks of four input channels. Audio is captured at 24-bit, 192 kHz sample rates with an exceptional dynamic range of 116dB A/D and 118dB D/A. Two powerful and transparent headphone outputs inspire artists to hear every nuance of their sound on any type of headphones, customise their foldback mix, and perform their best.

Great if you're close miking drums and amps, but if you want to accurately set higher gain it can be hard. If you cannot exactly align the channels as required on location, re-balance in your computer when back at your edit / mix room. There's a bit of a difference between close-miking your guitar amp or vocal with a 57 etc, and a stereo pair of quality SDC's in a large stone hall at 10 meters or more. With its sonic performance, leading edge round-trip audio latency and ease of use, the Clarett+ 8 Pre is an excellent choice of interface. Add to that two wide dynamic range front-panel headphone outputs with enough power to deliver healthy levels to high-impedance headphones, and the Clarett+ becomes your go-to device for tracking and mixing.

the published spec is ‑106dB), which is also a very worthwhile improvement over the previous model’s ‑103dB. Two JFET instrument inputs preserve the natural tone of guitars, just like plugging into an amplifier. The 8Pre and the 8PreX have identical front–panel controls relating to monitoring, comprising an assignable rotary level control plus Mute and Dim buttons.

Interestingly, activating the Air option also reduces the microphone preamps’ input impedance from 6. I was provided with the flagship model for this review, the Clarett+ 8Pre, which is described as “a powerful studio‑grade 18‑in/20‑out audio interface”.The “Talk” button now greys out at high sample rates and displays a tool-tip to indicate talkback is disabled. Having an iPad control the foldback mix while the DAW was on the computer screen worked perfectly – this saved us the trouble of constantly switching screens when working on a single-screen setup. With updated clean, minimalist visuals, alongside an exciting range of improvements under the hood, the Clarett+ 8Pre is a high-quality option for your studio space. Unfortunately my primary role for it is high gain applications like distant ambient and room mics that need a lot of juice.