Interface Dilemma!@#$%

themdla

themdla

New member
So i've had Pro Tools and a digi 002r for a number of years and i hate it!!!!

i've started running cubase again and i need a good firewire interface under $1000 New.

most important to me is A/D and D/A conversion. Next would be Mic pre's.

it would be awesome if i could get decent pre's and conversion but i'll settle for conversion between the two options.

i've been looking at:

- Steinberg MR816X
- Echo AudioFire12
- Mackie Mackie Onyx Blackbird 16x16
- Focusrite Saffire PRO 40
- Presonus Firestudio Project

i'm mainly looking for the opinions of people who have owned, returned, compared, or used any of these interfaces.

between these interfaces or any others you might suggest...

which is the best? (considering i have a digi 002r now)

thx in advance!!!!! :D
 
I've got the Firestudio which is basically the project with a few extras.

I had some problems with it at the start that were all related to the firewire chipset on my motherboard. After I got that sorted it worked great with one exception.

I wanted to use it at a live gig for mixing monitor mixes. It was all set up and ready to go and the night before the gig I renamed a bunch of mixes and inputs so it would be easier for the sound guy. Somehow after a year of flawless service the thing was screwed the night of the gig. The only thing that changed was the mix names, and afterword I had found out the frimware was corrupted. after the firmware was fixed it's worked fine ever since.

I don't have a lot of expierience with other units but from what I've researched it has very high quality pre amps for the money.

As far as AD conversion I've tried recording the same track through a SPDIF out and the analog out from a Line 6 X3 live and I couldn't hear a difference at all on the recorded tracks.

Again I've used cheaper equipment but have never used the real high end stuff so my opinion might not mean much on mic pres or AD/DA. I can tell you I've never been disapointed by the sound quality I get from my presonus.
 
I don't have experience with the units you've requested below, however I have had two others: an old MOTU PCI unit and more recently, a firewire Mackie Onyx 400f.

Both performed well, however I've become frustrated with the Mackie recently, as they seem to have halted driver development / support for it (no Win 7 development, etc.) They apparently went through outsourcing their driver development, then after miserable buggy / delayed driver results, insourced it again - but by that time, they had halted sales of the 1200f and 400f units for a while and eventually just stopped altogether.

Personally I haven't had a great experience with Mackie support, so from purely a driver perspective, I wouldn't recommend the blackbird, simply because of historically poor driver performance and support.
 
agreed.. drivers are really important to me!

I’m really f*cking tired of fighting to make stuff work. I want to sit down an record consistently without all the headaches lol.
 
anyone in the 88 people that have viewed this page use these interfaces?

if not what are you guys using?
 
the Steinberg MR816X will be your best bet as it will work with Cubase the best and automatically take care of most of the set up. But I have no complaints about Presonus either.
 
so i guess you are using the steinberg now?

do you have any mixed or unmixed raw tracks you'd like to share?

i just wanna hear a couple of these things before i drop a grand on a new interface....

does anyone have anything they'd like to post with the interface used to record it?

i may just get a couple of these and return them untill i find one i like but i also don't want to waste too much time and stack up restocking fees either.
 
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