I use the Multimix 8 FW for everything audio on my Compaq Presario x6000 laptop. The built-in TI FW chipset works great using the latest drivers from Alesis as did the previous driver, I use the streaming audio selection in the MM control panel and set the latency for 1028 and the audio is great in FL Studio 6, Kristal Audio and WMP. Why don't you set it as your default audio device in Windows, then by setting the input routing to it on 8 different tracks you can record and adjust all 8 channels seperately in your recording software, instead of just using it as a mixer. I don't know about Mac but the MM 8 FW works great for me in XP Pro SP2 with 1gb ram with no special tweaking for audio like I did with the Tascam US-122 USB unit. I have to re-sync using the MM control panel once in a while when a wayward plug-in decides to screw up, but it never has caused me to lose any music I was working on. I wish this unit would have been available when I first decided to do some home recording around 2 years ago, I would have passed on the Tascam for sure.