M-Audio 1010 ($400) vs Presonus Firewire ($600): Help With Indecision, Please!

[G. Simon]

I want eight ins and outs for my new pc-based home setup, but I'd like a little guidance. I'm a guitar-based singer-songwriter who uses little MIDI (drum machine only) and lots of backing vocals and layers of acoustic/elec/bass guitar.

I have a 90s Tascam M208 8x4x2 mixer which I liked with my old 1/2" tape setup, but I'm not sure it will give me as good of a sound today as the interfaces I name above.

What do y'all think??? The $200 is not going to make or break this decision - is there a third model I ought to be considering??


Thanks,
Glenn

 

[scrubs]

They're different beasts. The firepod has built-in mic preamps, whereas the 1010 is only line-in. The firepod is portable (could be used with a firewire capable laptop), whereas the 1010 is PCI only. It's really a question of what you need. If you are happy with the preamps in your mixer and/or would prefer to use external pres, then get the delta. If you need preamps, get the firepod.

From what I've heard, the firepod pres are very decent (probably better than your mixer), but nothing glorious. I can't speak to the relative quality of converters in these 2 units, though I've heard great recordings made with both.

 

[shackrock]

to add to what scrubs said,

the Aardvark Q10 (although the company is out of business, i've used one for the past year and a half and it's been awesome.). Some like this better than the firepod, some don't - as usual. haha. These were 600-700 new when they were still being made. now you can easily get one on ebay for 400ish, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less if you're really lucky.

the mackie onyx 400f just came out. it has 4 onyx pre's, and 4 more line inputs, and a stereo spdif input. sells for 700 new....used ones aren't really out yet - as this thing litereally came out this week. ha.

 

[dgatwood]

I want eight ins and outs for my new pc-based home setup, but I'd like a little guidance. I'm a guitar-based singer-songwriter who uses little MIDI (drum machine only) and lots of backing vocals and layers of acoustic/elec/bass guitar.

IMHO, the decision really comes down to whether you think you'll outgrow the audio interface before you outgrow your current computer (or possibly your next computer, depending on your timetable).

PCI is being phased out in favor of PCI Express (PCIe). Apple already dropped it across their desktop line. I would guess that motherboards supporting legacy PCI cards will probably be hard to find within about 3-5 years with the exception of a handful of specialty boards. (This is consistent with the timetable for the death of ISA.) If you expect to still be using the same sound card much past that, don't buy the Delta 1010.

Yes, you can adapt PCI (and PCI-X) cards to connect to a PCIe bus, but most people wouldn't buy a $2000 Magma expansion chassis to support a $400 sound card. The internal-only nature of PCI makes it difficult for adapter technology to exist at a price point that's affordable, with the possible exception of folks trying to decide whether to replace a $20k+ Digi setup....

FireWire and USB, by contrast, being external peripheral architectures with cheap controller cards easily available for PCI, PCIe, etc., are in no danger of becoming unusable until PCIe gets replaced even if manufacturers announced an incompatible next generation architecture to replace FireWire and/or USB tomorrow, simply by buying a couple of cards and carrying them forward from machine to machine.

Oh, and M-Audio does make some good FireWire interfaces. I'm using their 1814 as my second interface (along with a Delta 1010LT).

 

[Bulls Hit]

I upgraded from my mixer/Delta 44 to a firepod & it's been great.

Here's a sample

All recorded thru the firepod pres, A/D/A convertors

 

[bileshake]

I agree with dgatwood, I have a Delta1010lt and love it and I'm sure it will be loyal to me as long as my current computer will still have it. But if I had a firewire interface, I could hook it up to a laptop, mac mini, whatever. I wouldn't have to worry about buying another machine that has PCI slots.