Audio interfaces comparison

I am going to throw my vote in for either a Focusrite Saffire or one of the interfaces from the Presonus Firestudio line. I have had great luck with both. I personally use a Saffire Pro 24 in my studio and a Pro 40 for my mobile recording rig. If you decided to get a firewire PCI card for your computer, make sure you get one with a Texas Instrument chipset in it. They work with pretty much everyone's interfaces.

Good luck.
 
yodhan said:
I am going to throw my vote in for either a Focusrite Saffire or one of the interfaces from the Presonus Firestudio line. I have had great luck with both. I personally use a Saffire Pro 24 in my studio and a Pro 40 for my mobile recording rig. If you decided to get a firewire PCI card for your computer, make sure you get one with a Texas Instrument chipset in it. They work with pretty much everyone's interfaces.

Good luck.
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Yeh, after a LOT of reviews and threads reading, i clearly saw that the Focusrite is the favorite for most people (in this budget), i'll go for the Pro 40. One question about it though, its not so critical, but i read in one post that although it has 8 XLR inputs, you can only use 4 simultaneously, is it correct?

Thanks for the FireWire tip!
 
Have never had that problem. I run mine with a Presonus Digimax LT on the ADAT port so Ic an get 16 channels at once, although I never need that many.
 
antichef said:
Check out the Echo interfaces - good bang for buck ratio. I use an Echo Audiofire 12 (no preamps - I have to use outboard preamps, but that's OK - they do make units with preamps), and it's super reliable and awesome - I got it used for about $300.

My knowledge in this area is probably getting stale, but on the subject of firewire, I remember that it's important you get a firewire card with a TI chip (or chipset) as opposed to something else.

My belief is that firewire is nice because it has a separate processor, whereas USB relies on the main CPU do to its work, so theoretically, you could wind up with hiccups if the main CPU was thrashing. For that reason, a firewire to USB converter (if there is such a thing) probably isn't a great idea.

On the other hand, it seems like firewire is on its way out, for better for for worse.
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Anything by Echo is pretty much rock solid. I have a Layla 24/96 that is still running strong.
 
MidoBan said:
Yeh, after a LOT of reviews and threads reading, i clearly saw that the Focusrite is the favorite for most people (in this budget), i'll go for the Pro 40. One question about it though, its not so critical, but i read in one post that although it has 8 XLR inputs, you can only use 4 simultaneously, is it correct?

Thanks for the FireWire tip!
Click to expand...

I have a pro40 and love it. no issues whatsoever. you can use all 8 xlr inputs at once if you want. during mixing i sometimes run six tracks at a time to the output, through a compressor/eq/etc, and then all 6 back in through separate inputs (basically 6 outputs and 6 inputs at once) and have zero issues. the limiting factor will be your computer if it can handle recording 8 tracks at once. the interface doesn't care and will have no problem at all.

if it were true that you could only use 4 at a time, there would be no point in having more than 4 inputs on the unit.

learning the mixcontrol software is a little weird at first. But make sure you use "zero latency monitoring" preset for tracking, and the fastest latency setting for tracking. The switch to "mixing" and a longer latency for mixing and mastering. That's really all I use the software for.
 
My presonus firepod has been pretty solid for me. Bought it used and had to jump a couple of circuits in channel 2 and havent had a problem other than that. But I have heard stories about many presonus firepods that are constantly in need of repair.
 
I have used everyone of those interfaces By far the focusrtite pro 40. Ease of use and those preamps! I use the pro24 dsp Because I didn't need the extra inputs and outputs for my home studio. But the thing I like about the 24 dsp is I can light pipe a octopre from focusrite adding 8 preamps to my set up say for drums.
 
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