cause... the original person who started this topic was talking about to change his recorder
or maybe because there are other options then invest 650 in mix pre while for 150 more you get much more
But he wanted it for nature recordings. He doesn't need 8 channels, but he does need a lot of quiet gain. I can't see how the 680 could even compare to the MixPre plus an M10, R-09HR, etc. for this purpose.