fw1082 - did i get ripped off?

[analbatross]

So i purchased tascam's 1082 interface off craigslist. I was able to play around with it hooked up to sonar before purchasing. Everything seemed to work perfectly until i got home and tried to simply use two condensers to record a band practice.

Input one works fine no matter what else is plugged in. Input two I had working when plugged in alone at one point. What's strange to me, is that when input one has a mic connected (yes they're xlr and phantom is on) the other 3 xlr inputs produce a very strange response from whichever mic is plugged in. It's something that I thought sounded like a damaged cable - I could get sound from the mic through the channel, provided the gain was turned up super high - at that point the sound captured was super harsh and clearly f*cked.

Am i right to worry that their could be something wrong with the preamps? Would I have been able to damage them by plugging condensers in with phantom on? (i pulled up a bunch of mixed opinions on that) Why was i able to get one of the otherwise damaged inputs working perfectly at one point? Lastly, this recording was done with audacity, as I was also having problems syncing the interface with cubase - does that have anything to do with it.

I apologize for my first post being such an annoying one.

Thanks!

 

[jjones1700]

If you have plugged/unplugged mics while phantom power is on, it is quite possible that something got damaged. I take the extreme precaution of shutting down a unit (mixer, recorder, whatever has phantom power that I happen to be using at the time) and then plugging/unplugging a mic, and then powering it back up.

Something else to keep in mind is what the specs on your mics are. I've noticed that the preamps on alot of Tascam's digital stuff seem to be pretty weak; resulting in having to either crank the trim all the way up (thus sounding like crap) or just running an external preamp.

 

[analbatross]

Thanks for the reply... I'll certainly be more careful!

I did figure some things out last night that bring up one more question, however.

As it turns out, I only have one working xlr cable. (i tested 5 others (!) and figured it was the preamps themselves)

More importantly - the preamps all work, with the exception of the first one, which records only one side. I'm hoping that there's an internal setting keeping this track panned. (doubtful)

So the interface has 2 firewire inputs. I also have access to a mixer with firewire capability. Would I be able to: going from mixer - to interface - to cubase, keep those tracks separate? I'd love to know that I didn't just get a unit with only 3 xlr in's!

Thanks again.