Which Of These Soundcards Would You Recommend?

General Discussion
1

I’m in the market for one, but I can’t splash out huge one it. It needs at least 4 inputs and at least 5 or 6 outputs, so these are the ones i’ve shortlisted.

What would you suggest or, not suggest in terms of preamps and latency?

M-Audio Fast Track Ultra
M-Audio ProFire 610
Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 DSP
PreSonus FireBox

thoughts?

2

I only recommend MOTU or RME
But everyone i know is looking for lowest round trip so…

Cheers

3

I have a non-DSP Focusrite 24. It’s reeeeaaaallly decent.

I’d recommend it.

What’s the point of having the DSP Focusrite? It’s useful but I don’t think it’s worth the extra cash myself.

4

I’ve been using the Firebox’s big brother the Firepod for years… although I’ve gotten good results with it I still wouldn’t recommend it. 2 out of 2 of my Presonus devices have had hardware failures under normal use, plus they are really, really finicky about your Firewire chipset.

5

I have the presonus firebox. And I really like the sound. It’s very clean and pure.
The pre-amps for the mics are also ridiculous good in my opinion and I heard more people were very positive about that.

Focusrite is also a good one if I believe the reviews.

6

Everyone will tell you, beware with m-audio, they have driver issues.

I own the m-audio firewire solo, works fine with os x, works a bit less well with windows 7.

besides that, I enjoy my soundcard.

7

I still recommend my (slightly old now) m-audio audiophile 192.

8

The older M-Audios were actually quite respected in terms of stability and drivers. One of the few manufacturers to actualy support Linux for quite a while. More lately (maybe as long as 5 years) this has apparently fallen by the wayside. At least from the reading I’ve done into the subject.

9

Don’t buy M-audio, I only have had problems with my M-Audio things and wouldn’t ever buy another m-audio device again.

10

Never had any issues with my M-Audio card… guess that makes me the exception to the rule.

11

I gotta defend M-Audio’s service, at least in the US. I bought a Midiman 8x8S USB midi interface secondhand, and it didn’t work with WinXP. I found out that Midiman had been bought out by M-Audio, so - assuming that nothing would come of it - I called M-Audio up to ask them about it. They told me I needed a new firmware chip, and they mailed it to me free of charge.

Keep in mind I had not actually purchased the unit from them, it was a brand they bought and I bought the unit secondhand. So I was impressed by that encounter.