I've owned both the firepod and the 410, and I would say that the firepod is a much better buy.
410: All unbalanced I/O except the mic pre's (very noisey by the way) and the drivers are finally stable but still a little glitchy; however, I still use this as my I/O when giging with my laptop. Cheap but does the job live. I wouldn't use this anymore in the studio, but not bad to start with.
Firepod: Nice mic pres, and good sound out of the unit. Everything is balanced, and the drivers are pretty stable; however, I really miss the DSP mixer feature of some other I/O's like the Motu line......also, all the mic pre inputs are on the front. This might not seem to bug you now, but if you use a rack you have to bring all your cables to the front.... Food for thought. Finally, there is only one headphone jack on the front, and two main outputs on the back. The second outs on the back only send one stereo side at a time, so they can't double as headphone jacks???
This stuff doesn't affect the performance of the unit, so if it doesn't bug you then your set. In my case it drives me up the wall. I spent all this time building snakes in the walls of my studio only to have to switch the headphone jack every time I use a different room. I also miss the DSP mixer big time. I'm returning the unit this week........but it does sound good : )
My advice, save the extra cash and buy a used motu 896 on ebay for the same price as a new firepod (I just picked one up for $589). much better bang for buck (more input options/DSP mixer/stable on mac/front gain LED's for pres), and with the 896HD out now, the original is way undervalued. I never record at 96khz so the 896HD upgrade to 192khz is pointless for me.
Hope this helps.
