Presonus Firebox vs Edirol FA66 (red) vs M-box 2 vs Audio Kontrol

[sebko]

gday guys

been thinking about what is the right sound card for me. basically i want to hook up a vci-100 with my black macbook, and use a Novationi 25 sl hahah probably guess where i got the idea from.. so its between these soundcards here. All i want is 2 outputs... so i can mix two tracks. inputs arent really needed as much, would 1 input would be nice... I know that with the audio kontrol its easy to cue tracks eg (listen to the channel 1, then easily switch to listen to channel 2, and both at the same time as well) i tested this in the store. Does the other soundcards have that easy cue function? With the m-box it seems as though it only has one output? is that right... thanks for the help guys

[BentoSan]

I have the Presonus Firebox and i really cannot see myself getting anything else even into the future. Rather than regurgitating product specs i will tell you what is possible to do with this device in particular

It has 3 stereo output's + 1 spdif output - Its possible to use the internal spdif out channel for the monitor on the front of the Presonus Firebox which frees up the three stereo analogue output ports for other things - no cables necessary. This means you could mix 3 decks externally(which i do not advise) or mix internally with two other friends(which i do strongly advise ).

There are 2x analogue stereo line inputs + 1x spdif stereo input - 2 of the analogue inputs are XLR microphone preamps, but you can easily use them as another two line inputs. I have a friend with a couple decks so i will be using these inputs rather for vinyl audio and/or vinyl timecode(using deckadance - as this is not a Traktor scratch amp). You could potentially also use the spdif input for inputting a third deck if the deck has a spdif connection.

All of this makes the firebox a pretty damn flexible option - i have yet to put this all though its paces as i just got the unit recently. Hopefully this weekend my friend and i will meet up and put it though its paces with a mixture of my digital midi hardware and his analogue hardware. I will keep everyone posted but i am pretty sure this is accurate.

As for the other hardware, without having it in my hands its really hard to comment - but if this is what your after then i highly suggest this unit.

[sebko]

thanks for that information, im fairly new to this, i was also told that there is no difference in terms of latency, between firewire and audio, and that people simply use firewire because it free's the
usb for other things. is that true? surely there is a reason why firewire cards are more expensive.

i have seen these cables which go from 1/4 inch --> rca... does this mean you could do this to mix externally?




and if you wanted to mix internally, is it easy to cue up tracks? eg on the vci-100 all you do is press cue on what side you want and you can hear it... ( that was using the audio kontrol) or do you have to move cables around just to hear the other channel. thanks for the top advice!

[BentoSan]

Those jacks that you have splitting into two cables are each mono jacks - i bought a ton of male Phono to female RCA adapters and run RCA leads that you are talking about. That "main output" is one deck in stereo, so 2 adapters and a 2 RCA leads are needed.

We have talked about firewire vs usb in the past, firewire has a lower latency . Also firewire cards are more expensive because they generally start using a higher level quality of components in firewire audio gear over usb gear. Though the USB latency on a good device is still very usable.

Setting up monitoring is a little different on every device, but on the firebox you open the software and select which line you want to monitor. You then open Traktor (or Ableton if your Smartmixing Traktor in Ableton) and select that line for the monitoring. From there you assign midi buttons to the cue buttons in the software and there is no cable rewiring hell.

[sebko]

thanks for the help! im set on buying the firebox now!

[BentoSan]

I need to get a job selling products *chuckles*

[amadora]

Quick question regarding the Edirol FA66 and the Presonus Firebox...

I see that both have two FireWire connections in the rear panel for connecting up an extra peripheral device, such as an external hard drive--

Do any of you guys daisy chain a external hd to your soundcard? Have you run into any problems regarding latency and/or drop-outs? Is this a viable option?

Thanks in advance