Yamaha 188x interface... the deal of the century?

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Yamaha i88x interface... the deal of the century?

After doing a lot of searches looking for a new interface, I found the 1616m, and it looks like it is amazing, but as I read here: very little info online. Then I found the Yamaha i88x and it got great reviews in EQ magazine, Musictechmag and Sound-on-Sound...... but first, let's go back and tell you what I'm looking for:

....well, a new interface, mostly to record acoustic solo guitar and multitrack some guitar/piano/vocal balads, so I need a real clear and detailed sound.

Here are my priorities:
2 really great preamps
2 really great convertors AD and DA
low latency for multitracking

that's it (not much to ask for eh )

Now I saw the specs on the 1616m and it seemed wonderful, but then I found the Yamaha i88x which has recently dropped in price from $1300 to $400,- (to give Mlan a boost) and it had all of the above (incredible preamps according to several reviews).

However, it's not even mentioned here or on some of the other forums, which strikes me as odd, because it seems like the deal of the century as it's being compared with units like the RME fireface and the MOTU units.

So I am thinking, what's the catch? What is your take?

Two reviewers commented on the great deal it was when this unit was still $1300,- . They said the preamps in the i88x were worth the money alone. They are the same preamps as in the $20.000,- Yamaha DM2000 console.

I wonder why no-one seems to be jumping on this deal. The only thing I seem to read is that the installation isn't always easy, but the latest drivers are fast and stable. One reviewer (a producer) bought the Yamaha i88x for his own rig after his review and he has been getting 1.5 ms latency with this thing.

Well, I want to take the plunge. The only thing troubling me is that it requires more than my Dell laptop has to offer, so I am stuck with my desktop. The EMU1616m doesn't give me that problem. Well, I'll just mull it over a bit longer.
 
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Yeah, I am sorry, I was talking in euros, but it doesn't matter. Two reviewers commented on the great deal it was when this unit was still $1300,-. They said the preamps were worth the money alone, let alone the $500- plug-ins they offer with the package. The preamps are the same ones as in the $20.000,- Yamaha DM2000 console and are easily in the same league as the Grace 101 preamps.

I wonder why no-one seems to be jumping on this deal. The only thing I seem to read is that the installation isn't always easy, but the latest drivers are fast and stable. Well, I think I will take the plunge. The only thing troubling me is that it requires more than my Dell has to offer, so I am stuck with my desktop. The EMU1616m doesn't give me that problem. Well, I'll just mull it over a bit longer.
 
Some products just don't seem to catch on, for whatever reason. The audio card is a very crowded field right now, and Yamaha is not known for that kind of product. It might have just gotten lost in the shuffle a bit. The M-Lan thing might be scaring some people off as well, since it has not become the kind of standard that Yamaha hoped it would.

If the i88x suits your needs you might want to try it out, especially if you can get Sweetwater to give you a guarantee that they will take it back if for some reason it doesn't work for you. I've found Yamaha gear to be solid and well made, I'm still using various synths and keyboards of theirs that are almost 20 years old!
 
The problem with i88 and mLan in general as I see it is that they're not compatible with just about any other studio gear on the market. Not even with some of the older mLan products AFAIK. It doesn't matter much if the sound quality is there if you can't use it with the other gear you already have or consider getting in the future and that's the main reason why mLan hasn't been a success as it might have been.

In the mLan world people are asking why doesn't mLan allow you to connect two or more computers together to make a powerful audio cluster if the routing possibilities are as good as advertized, and I'm wondering this too. It seems that Yamaha is hoping that people would jump on the mLan bandwagon and buy mLan products while at the same it's scared that mLan would be used for something else than selling those mLan products.

Before buying the i88 you might want to read about how frustrated the current mLan users are about the slow progress mLan has been making in the past.

http://mlancentral.com/
 
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