Pros: All in all the Clarett+ OctoPre is a very nice and well sounding unit. The Air function gives sources a nice shine and the dynamic range is excellent. On drums it's punchy. Vocals are clear and open. Acoustic string instruments and percussion sits well in the mix. The HiZ inputs are fine as well. And the fact the you can use it as a standalone preamp or 8 Chan AD/DA I/O via Adat and WordClock is also a big plus! Sonically a great addition to anyone looking for good quality extension to their studio.
Cons: Small stuff, but I wish that line in, for when inserting external equipment, was fixed at unity gain - straight to AD - and not variable from the gain knobs.
And that the insert points per channel was balanced! But I understand that from a cost perspective and physical space on the back of the unit.
Lastly, it would have been nice when using external sync that the unit would auto detect the samplerate. You have to set that manually.