Topic: Some advice on a firewire Sound card

[newbold]

I've narrowed it down to:

focusrite saffire

and

Presonus Firebox


is there anyhting as good for cheaper, and which do you prefer of the 2 and why?

[Church-Audio]

I've narrowed it down to:

focusrite saffire

and

Presonus Firebox


is there anyhting as good for cheaper, and which do you prefer of the 2 and why?

there is only one clear winner out of the two FOCUSRITE not a hard choice. Presonus has some good products but they are not in the same hemisphere as FOCUSRITE!

[newbold]

i am now thinking about saving up some more money and getting an mbox pro.

i wish someone would adequately dissuade me.

[Church-Audio]

i am now thinking about saving up some more money and getting an mbox pro.

i wish someone would adequately dissuade me.

ONE WORD FOCUSRITE, they make some of the best mic preamps out there PERIOD. trust me there is not to many mic preamps besides Neve that are any better. They have been in the real world of Pro audio for a long time, PROtools is a good company but nowhere near as good at making mic preamps as Focusrite. I just checked the specs on compared the Focusrite to the protools mbox and the Focusrite has a much better preamp more gain less noise, they focusrite, measured the noise at +60 db of gain and found it to be -120! thats very good. Now protools measured the noise at -60db ( a useless measurement) unless your never going to use your mic preamps, at 125db!. This is a classic case of dont get fooled by the numbers manufacturers often fudge the numbers, Focusrite does not, they measure things the honest way. Hell I would rather pay $399 and get 24bit 192khz then $799 and get 24bit 96k max with the protools interface.

Chris Church

[THE NIZ BIAAAAACH!]

Ive never heard the focusrite, but I will say I really liked my firebox best pre and ad Ive ever run under $1000

[Church-Audio]

Ive never heard the focusrite, but I will say I really liked my firebox best pre and ad Ive ever run under $1000

I would ask other members here what they think of Focusrite there are many users on this board that are recording engineers that work in real recording studio's they can tell you how nice Focusrite is.  At the end of the day you have to listen to your ears this is just my own opinion and you know what they say about opinions

[nic]

don't know if things have changed since the original mbox(usb1.1), but the pres were focusrite in that unit.

that said, a year+ ago when I got my firebox, I looked at the sapphire and it just didn't stack up compared to the firebox feature wise.

[poorlyconditioned]

Ive never heard the focusrite, but I will say I really liked my firebox best pre and ad Ive ever run under $1000

I would ask other members here what they think of Focusrite there are many users on this board that are recording engineers that work in real recording studio's they can tell you how nice Focusrite is.  At the end of the day you have to listen to your ears this is just my own opinion and you know what they say about opinions

I would like to audition all this stuff, but never had the time/opportunity.  I'm curious if the Focusrite is really professional quality, though, or if it is some cheaper consumer version.  I'd love to hear from people who have used it though...

 Richard

[Church-Audio]

Ive never heard the focusrite, but I will say I really liked my firebox best pre and ad Ive ever run under $1000

I would ask other members here what they think of Focusrite there are many users on this board that are recording engineers that work in real recording studio's they can tell you how nice Focusrite is.  At the end of the day you have to listen to your ears this is just my own opinion and you know what they say about opinions

I would like to audition all this stuff, but never had the time/opportunity.  I'm curious if the Focusrite is really professional quality, though, or if it is some cheaper consumer version.  I'd love to hear from people who have used it though...

 Richard

I have used it actually I was just mixing a friends band in the studio it was a protools rig but we also used this interface I liked it. Is it pro quality? Not exactly but for $500 Nothing is pro quality as far as I am concerned, for a preamp-usb interface. I feel the bottom line is you get what you pay for. This box is very good at what it does.

Chris Church

[poorlyconditioned]

Ive never heard the focusrite, but I will say I really liked my firebox best pre and ad Ive ever run under $1000

I would ask other members here what they think of Focusrite there are many users on this board that are recording engineers that work in real recording studio's they can tell you how nice Focusrite is.  At the end of the day you have to listen to your ears this is just my own opinion and you know what they say about opinions

I would like to audition all this stuff, but never had the time/opportunity.  I'm curious if the Focusrite is really professional quality, though, or if it is some cheaper consumer version.  I'd love to hear from people who have used it though...

 Richard

I have used it actually I was just mixing a friends band in the studio it was a protools rig but we also used this interface I liked it. Is it pro quality? Not exactly but for $500 Nothing is pro quality as far as I am concerned, for a preamp-usb interface. I feel the bottom line is you get what you pay for. This box is very good at what it does.

Chris Church

Great.  Thanks for the info.

I really like the Presonus Firepod/Firebox.  I like the sound, and the innards are solid too -- it has a discrete transistor front end and true +/- 15V supplies on the opamps (MC33079 amps I believe).  This compares favourably with stuff like Edirol that runs on only +/- 5V supplies and does not have a discrete front end.

  Richard

[Church-Audio]

Ive never heard the focusrite, but I will say I really liked my firebox best pre and ad Ive ever run under $1000

I would ask other members here what they think of Focusrite there are many users on this board that are recording engineers that work in real recording studio's they can tell you how nice Focusrite is.  At the end of the day you have to listen to your ears this is just my own opinion and you know what they say about opinions

I would like to audition all this stuff, but never had the time/opportunity.  I'm curious if the Focusrite is really professional quality, though, or if it is some cheaper consumer version.  I'd love to hear from people who have used it though...

 Richard

I have used it actually I was just mixing a friends band in the studio it was a protools rig but we also used this interface I liked it. Is it pro quality? Not exactly but for $500 Nothing is pro quality as far as I am concerned, for a preamp-usb interface. I feel the bottom line is you get what you pay for. This box is very good at what it does.

Chris Church

Great.  Thanks for the info.

I really like the Presonus Firepod/Firebox.  I like the sound, and the innards are solid too -- it has a discrete transistor front end and true +/- 15V supplies on the opamps (MC33079 amps I believe).  This compares favourably with stuff like Edirol that runs on only +/- 5V supplies and does not have a discrete front end.

  Richard

The presonus stuff is good I have used it plenty of times I love the 8 channel compressor gate they have. But I will say I found them to be noisy even looking at the specs the Focusrite is much better and to my ears it sounds much better. I wish I had access to both of them for a direct comparison I don't know if I have any other projects coming up in that same studio if I do I will try and get a presonus. I remember when they first hit the scene they came down from the US to talk to a sound company I worked for we did purchase a large amount of the stuff and it held up nicely I don't like all the surface mount stuff they use because its very hard to fix. But that's pretty much the way things are going now anyway so my point is moot