I so can’t really recommend the 8, which I owned. It did OK with Redbook but really only shined with high rez music, so an external upsampler was a must. Also, I put a scope on the outputs and there was some really funky output going on there, as one reviewer found.
Unfortunately the 8 and maybe the 9 were right at that cut-over when DAC’s started sounding really great even with Redbook.
I did end up selling it and using that money to pay for a Mytek Brooklyn. Sound was always better, but Redbook shined.
Otherwise, on high res music the sound was rather on par with modern AR sounding. Extremely neutral but also perhaps too laid back. Not as cool as prior gen AR