PreSonus Firepod vs. M-Audio Firewire 1814

  • Thread starter Thread starter Xander
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Xander

New member
Hey guys,
Been on the board for a while, but new to posting! I'm selling my delta 1010lt in favour of a firewire option. The two cards I'm looking at are the Firepod and the Firewire 1814. I use an M-Audio Keystation Pro 88, Reason 2.5 (Soon to be 3... hopefully :D) and Sonar 4. I want firewire so i can also plug it into my laptop and do some live reason mixes. I do own a Kurzweil PC2R, but I want to use some of the reason soft-synths and sequencer. My rack case goes with me to the gigs, so the firepod is portable enough, but I'm in two minds and can't make a decision. They're both around the same street value (although the 1814s get shipped with a pair SP B3's or MXL V67G's from some ebay sellers). Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers,
Xander
 
I have not had any experience with the M-Audio Firewire 1814 firsthand, but i do own a firepod that i use for quick recording and it works amazingly well. Very simple installation and operation, low latency, and great sound from the decent on-board preamps.
 
jazzmang, do you have any mp3's of songs you've recorded with the firepod? I'm thinking about getting one
 
The firepod seems to be better value as it's got the 8 preamps built in. You gotta go buy pres with the M-Audio unit
 
sounds to me as though the firepod is a better unit, heard lots of good thing. JazzMang, do you know if you can bypass the pre's?
 
vigormusic said:
jazzmang, do you have any mp3's of songs you've recorded with the firepod? I'm thinking about getting one
Click to expand...

Well, I am out of town right on business right now, but I will try and post some stuff up here when i get back (late on friday).

As far as being able to bypass the pre's, I dont believe you can do so on all channels, just channels 1 and 2 (they have line inputs in the rear of the unit). the rest of the 8 inputs must be connected via the neutrik connectors, which are directly pre-amped.

I use my firepod for small projects and it sees quite a bit of work. So far i really haven't had any problems whatsoever. I only have 2 gripes:
1) lack of metering. I understand that they were pressed for space, but i would have liked something other than a clip LED, just to enhance the user feedback (although its ultimately your ears that make the call as to whether the input is too hot).

2) Once again, just a minor annoyance: the gain knobs are very close to each other. kinda difficult sometimes to change the gain at an angle without messing up one of the other gain knobs... not a huge deal, but just something i wish would have been thought out a little bit better.
 
that sounds good to me if those are the only problems with it. thanks!
 
vigormusic said:
jazzmang, do you have any mp3's of songs you've recorded with the firepod? I'm thinking about getting one
Click to expand...

b/c i am out of town, no, but here is a review of the firepod that has some audio files up for download.
I thought the review was done quite well too.

Firepod Review

Hope this helps!

JazzMang
 
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