Intermediate Interfaces: Firebox vs Saffire Le vs Whatever

[Screwtape]

ok...i know its another one of those hardware questions that is gonna be loaded... but im looking to upgrade from my edirol UA-25. It doesn't have enough i/oputs and i guess im looking at so far:

the presonus firebox
or
the focusrite saffire Le.

but would flirt with some other suggestions too...

most of the stuff currently is running traktor and routing the sound through to an external mixer and want dedicated outs for each deck (4) ...plus one for monitoring. and have room to expand to some other external hardwares.

as for production...im not into it yet but plan on getting into it...and was wondering how these two stand up to its big brothers and peoples experiences running cubase/ recording etc.

thanks for the help.

[BentoSan]

i have the presonus firebox and im quite confident it will rock on any soundsystem i throw it on, the latency is nice and low too which is important.

The 2 XLR inputs Presonus firebox are known for their high quality, so if your doing any recording with them you can be confident that your recording quality will most likely be restricted by your environment and/or your mic rather than your soundcard.

I cant talk for the focusrite saffire Le as i dont have one and have not used one. However i know i will have my presonus firebox for a long time to come and i am very happy with it.

[Flaekiface]

I don’t think it matters that much. Both the presonus firebox and the focusrite saffire Le are quality soundcards. So pick the one that satisfies your needs and your wallet the best.

[Wuz]

@ screwtape

kind of off topic, but what do you think of the Edirol UA-25
what is your opinion of it for solely being used for traktor + a midi controller doing 2 deck mixing internally. I've been considering upgrading from my BCD3000 which means a soundcard and controller, would like to hear some opinions on this particular sound card as it's in my price range and i think its functionality would suit.

I think it may be overkill and the Novation NIO 2|4 would probably suit me better (and cheaper)

cheers.

[Screwtape]

wuz:

The UA-25 is ok. ...i actually still like it...cuz it has a sturdy design and the drivers were never finicky. but it has some serious faults for the sole Traktor+controller setup.

the UA-25 has only 2 outputs...so you have to assign both outputs to an L/R output in traktor... leaving nothing for monitoring -- so for dj'ing it didn't allow cue'ing of tracks.

secondly the latency in traktor is 10ms...i couldn't ever get it down pass that. which was fine at first -- but i found when i was trying to set up smart mixing that ms just started to multiply.

my friend owns an M-Audio fast track pro. we bought different ones to test things out and its latency gets down to 5.5ms in traktor and it has sp/idf outputs also which can be assigned in traktor to the monitors allowing for headphone cue'ing. And it costs a bit less than the UA-25.

and yet for whatever reason...i hate when i have to use the Fast Track Pro cuz it just seems cheap in its handling but ultimately it got the job done over the UA-25.

but if you're ever thinking of expanding and doing more than just that...i suggest getting a better soundcard. we should have saved up that hundred extra bucks and got a saffire Le and a firebox and duked it out from there.

hope that helps

[Wuz]

cheers, again it seems to me like the novation nio is designed well for pure dj use.

since it has good monitor capability (and dual headphone ability for 2 for 2 mixing )

[BentoSan]

cheers, again it seems to me like the novation nio is designed well for pure dj use.

since it has good monitor capability (and dual headphone ability for 2 for 2 mixing )

Yeah, thats if you can get your software even supports 2 monitor channels - which most don't - i cant even think of a single dj application that supports dual cue's.

[Chilly]

I have the Saffire LE.

It's great. Fully customizable, great sound!