The aardvark preamps are quite good. If you need 8 preamps in your soundcard's breakout box, then you're not going to find anything else in that price range. It's possible you might find the Echo Mona (with4 preamps) for cheaper since it's a discontinued product (which has continued driver support, I believe) but I'm not totally sure.
Another possibility: get a card with ADAT I/O and get one of the many soundcards out there that support ADAT. I love my E-mu, which is an 18 in/20 out device, with adat i/o, but I'm not going to recommend it without reservations because the drivers aren't mature yet. I personally think it's the best deal around if it works on your system. _IF_ you can find a retailer that will accept returns on sound cards, try it out. That plus an ADAT preamp front end will beat the functionality of the Aardvark handsdown.
If you really want to spend less money, the RME Hammerfall Light and the Frontier Designs Wavecenter will give you cards with ADAT IO (the RME has 2 for 400 USD, the Frontier Designs has 1 for 300) and...GASP!
A Behringer ADA8000 as your 8 channel preamp / analog front-end. The preamps will NOT sound as good as those as the Aardvark, but they're not bad. Very usable, if not as clean gain at the extremes as your more expensive preamps. much better than many other budget preamps out there. And the construction is quite good, actually. This will run you 200-350 cheaper than your best price on a new Q10. (
The E-mu 1212m, at 200 bucks, also has adat i/o, but, again, it's an immature product...)
OR...
You can spend a little more and get something like
a Presonus Digimax LT. Pretty darn solid preamps in those things, but it will run you 600 bucks for that, compared to 200 for the Behringer, and there goes your cost savings.
Also note, the RME and Frontier Designs drivers are probably the very best in the industry, in my and others' experiences. Aardvark can be finnicky depending on the software you want to use.
I hope that helps?
