Alesis io26

i love it. ive had it since december. the drivers sucked at first but now theyre pretty stable. the pres don't sound bad, especially for the price. i combined it with another 8 channel pre with adat lightpipe output and expanded it to 16 of simultaneous inputs. the s/pdif ins are quite nice for keyboards, pres, effects, etc.. with spdif output. very flexible routing. you can have 4 different mixes out with the 8 available outputs. the only thing i wish it had was a talkback mic and speaker selectors. but for the price and quality, you cant beat it. ive created hundred of recordings with it that sound amazing. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for an interface. the only bug that ive noticed is that mine will restart by itself. it rarely ever effects recording because it only happens once in a great while.
 
I was thinking about getting the little brother of this (io|14) for my carputer based mobile (and I do mean mobile;-) recording rig. I'm in the middle of building a ultra compact VIA NX12000EG based computer to put into my tiny smart Roadster and the price of the io26 and ability to connect extra 8 channels via Adat input looks tempting.
 
Even though it is actually slightly less convenient then set up I used prior to last Jan. I'm still satisfied with the I/O26 for mobile field work. With added mic pre's via ADAT optical I regularly track 12-18 simultaneously

in my experience the 'reset' problem has more to do with poor XP firewire implementation then with I/O26 itself (admittedly everyone in the Wintel firewire mess shares some responsibility)

I use it primarily to track live music performance and (saying this of course tempts fate) not yet lost source material, but have had to reset I/O26 when it has just 'sat' power up, for long series of time (but this is not remarkably different then experience I've had with Wintel & MOTU product)

If the price differential had been greater I would have picked up the 'little brother' (I/O14?) as a personal interface when it's just me and carry on luggage. But, for me, there was enough loss of feature set (with I/O14) without enough price differential to stop the purchase.

Anyway main point is that as a front end for computer recording that has a lot of flexibility (for the price), decent mic pre's (for the price) and migrates well among platforms (Mac, Wintel, (have not tried it on linux yet), stationary PC, mobile notebook) it's almost a bargain
 
help!

The manual says that you can't connect ADAT at anything other than 44.1 and 48kHz sample rates. If I got an ART preamp to connect to it, would I be able to use the s/pdif at 88.2kHz? I can't seem to find the rates s/pdif will work.

I was looking forward to high sample rates, but I'm assuming the ART tube pre will still be an asset at 44.1...any thoughts?
 
Do you think this is as good as or better than the presonus firepod for the same price?
 
not sure that's a question that can be answered

far too many variables, many not only dependent on individual systems but are subjective as well

I have experience with Alesis product going back 20 yrs (the good bad and indifferent) the feature set of I/O26 matched almost exactly what my experience suggested I was looking for I'm not crazy about case design but in small (8-16 track) live sessions this allowed me to reduce gear by at least one box and provide more monitor flexibility

even so I bought it as a gamble and used on a half dozen local pro bono live sessions before I tempted fates on a for hire session and ran about another half dozen of those before I configured a kit in which the I/O26 was critical gear

Seven months and roughly another half dozen sessions with I/O26 as the main interface of a very lean record kit and I'm conservatively OK with the purchase

that said by the far the majority of firepod owners I know are satisfied with the product
 
theres a thread in craig andertons forum over at harmony central under pro reviews that should help you out quite a bit. tons of info on the problems people have dealt with, and very good reviews from craig himself.

Adam
 
I own the io 26, but i bought a firepod first and it just kept crashing on my computer (using windows vista). Presonus claimed that it should work with windows vista, but it gave me nothing but a headache.

i actually had the Presonus working for a while and did some recording with it. it was ok, but i noticed some interference when it was at 3/4 of the way up. the preamps were pretty good though, so you didn't have to turn it up that far. after it crashed for about the fifth time, for no reason, i took it back and got the io 26.

i must say, the Alesis has been rock solid, and quite honestly, i think it sounds cleaner then the firepod. Easy set up. Most people will probably tell you Presonus is the way to go, but after using both, I like the Alesis much better.
 
io26 = good

I've used both, for major projects. The Firepod is good, but the io26 is FAR more flexible. It has software mixable low latency monitoring, and two independent headphone outs (this saves having to buy a headphone mixer when you're only recording one or two artists at a time)...They sound a little different, but are both crisp and transparent. I like the fact that the io2 has insert jacks on all 8 ins, this not only allows insertion of compressors and effects, but also allows you to connect an outboard mic pre, totally bypassing the inboard pre.

The only problems I've had are with 1394 (firewire) incompatibility, and both boxes suffer from it... though the io26 may be a lil' bit more finicky. Be sure to get a good TI based card.
 
Can anyone else verify that they can record 8 tracks at 192kHz? When I selected 192 or 176.4kHz my track options in Reaper became limited to 4 tracks.
 
Could that be a software limitation? Are the tracks coming from the mic/line inputs or through the ADAT input?
 
Ok, it can only do 4 tracks of 176 or 192. Now what I want to figure out is whether or not two alesi can be hooked up to one computer for 16 tracks at 96kHz.

And can I get 8 inputs at 96kHz on ADAT? I got the S/Pdif working two channels at 96kHz...
 
One ADAT port at 96kHz only provides 4 inputs. To get 8 inputs, you'd need to use both ports.

I think I've read that you can't daisy chain two IO26 units but, I have no first hand experience about that.
 
The549 said:
Then what exactly are the two firewire ports for?
Click to expand...

I don't believe you can daisy chain 2 of them together yet, maybe they'll change that in the future.

I'm guessing the other firewire port might be for an external firewire HDD but I'm just guessing here.

I've transfered 8 tracks via ADAT from my Fostex Vf16 straight into Cakewalk homestudio 2004 XL, but I was using 44.1Khz.

If I get a chance I'll try it tonight at a higher sampling rate just to see what it does and see if my results are the same as yours.
 
you can daisy chain up to 127 firewire devices as long as your pc can handle it actually, hence the two firewire ports..... and you can do 8 tracks ADAT lightpipe, not 4..... but it limits your sample rate to 44.1Khz iirc.
 
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