Can certainly vouch for the ULN-2. Still getting used to it in my system. The set-up has a learning curve, but if you take the time to go over some of the set-up videos it is not that bad. I haven't even tried it in Firewire mode yet, just coaxial SPDIF. As far as the ULN-8 I cannot comment on sonics but it seems to me that if you are running multiple amps (i.e. dynamic, electrostatic and speaker) then you already have 6 of 8 channels spoken for n'est-ce pas ?