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[mwillems]

So I just saw that Behringer launched a multi-channel interface late last year, the FCA 1616: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/FCA1616?utm_source=CSE&utm_medium=PPC&zmap=FCA1616&zmac=2&zmas=1&zmam=89202644&SID=-1#  

It's a USB interface with 8 balanced analog outs, and retails for $250.  If it works the way most multi-channel interfaces do, that would make it the cheapest external 8-channel DAC with balanced outputs that I've seen marketed.

Does anyone have any ears on experience with it?  It doesn't seem to have published noise specs (very limited electrical specs overall), which is not encouraging.  Folks seem to be having mixed experiences with it over at gearslutz: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/product-alerts-older-than-2-months/691580-behringer-fca1616-13.html.  The folks from Behringer seem to be active over there, and they seem to be updating the firmware to respond to issues, so some of those issues may get ironed out as it matures.

I'm not in the market currently, but I'm curious if it would be suitable as a budget option for any of the other folks around here looking for a multichannel DAC.  If anyone knows more, I'd be interested to hear it.  

It looks like there's a slightly stripped down version available as well: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/FCA610 that also has eight outputs, although it is mysteriously the same price?

[mwillems]

I found some measurements of the FCA1616 over here: http://en.audiofanzine.com/external-audio-interface/behringer/firepower-fca1616/editorial/reviews/behringer-gives-its-interfaces-the-midas-touch.html. 

If those are accurate that's not bad at all for the price (.005% THD+N and 100dB SNR on the outputs is nothing to spit at).  It's not competing with the more expensive interfaces, but that's a usefully low distortion number. 

[jdubs]

Very interesting.  If it did 24/192 I'd be all over it....but, curious if they'll do a firmware update to get it there (similar to Steinberg).

-Jim

[mattkhan]

It doesn't appear to have a mixer app does it? Just an asio driver and hard wiring outputs to channels.

[mwillems]

It doesn't appear to have a mixer app does it? Just an asio driver and hard wiring outputs to channels.

I think that's correct, but based on my reading it looks like all 8 outputs can be driven from the USB or firewire inputs.  Folks over on GS (and the Behringer rep) were saying that none of the other digital inputs can be natively routed to the outputs without a DAW (or some other 3rd party safotware) in between.  

But that wouldn't necessarily be an impediment to using it as an 8-channel DAC with JRiver; JRiver can handle channel routing as long as all 8 output channels can be accessed from the ASIO driver.   But it's hard to know if that's the case or not without having one on hand for testing; Behringer's documentation is so thin I have no idea what the real routing limitations of the device are.

[mojave]

Since it has ADAT output/input, you could connect two of these for 16 channels of balanced output.

I've never heard of an ASIO driver that didn't access all of the outputs. I'm sure this will work fine with JRiver for 8 channels of output with one and 16 channels if you add a second one.

[mwillems]

Since it has ADAT output/input, you could connect two of these for 16 channels of balanced output.

I've never heard of an ASIO driver that didn't access all of the outputs. I'm sure this will work fine with JRiver for 8 channels of output with one and 16 channels if you add a second one.

I haven't heard of an ASIO driver that didn't reach all channels either, but someone in the thread over at Gearslutz asked the Behringer rep if you could slave it to another interface via ADAT, and the rep initially said that it couldn't be done, but later seemed to backtrack a bit (saying it could be done if both interfaces were connected to the computer), but said it wasn't supported/recommended.  

The issue seems to be the lack of mixer support (i.e. the ADAT ins don't automatically go out the analog outs and can't be configured to do so in a "set and forget" way), so the Behringer needs to be connected to the PC even if it's the slave, and channel routing needs to be done in software.

All that made me wonder what other limitations it might have, or whether the Behringer team is just confused about their own product.

[mojave]

You should be able to connect to a Behringer ADA8000 since it is an 8-channel ADAT D/A. It doesn't need the computer, but you are then limited to 48 kHz.