Presonus Firebox Reviews?, Anyone actually use this yet? Options

[ArchivalAudio]

wondering if anyone has actually used the new PreSonus FireBox? Its been available in Europe for a month now... and just became available here in the US. I am wondering if any has tried this unit out... I am strongly considering gettting one. I would like to hear any reviews of this new interface.

any opinions?
power consumption in the feild? etc.

thanx
-- Ian

[arvidtp]

I'm considering getting a MOTU ultralite to replace my firebox (i could still SPDIF-sync and aggregate the two interfaces to make one big interface - so I'm not throwing away the firebox)

So, I have good and bad news about the firebox. I just did a test with it vs. a MOTU traveller that my friend has. I tested preamps and CPU usage:

Preamps:
The MOTU preamps are much quieter. No question. I used a pair of damn nice Danish Pro Audio omni mics (that unfortunately i dont own - their owner said they were ~$1500 a piece) placed right next to each other (they are tiny and fit together on one mic stand), one plugged in the the firebox preamp 1, one into the traveller preamp 1. We recorded drums, acoustic guitar and speech.

It was difficult to hear a difference between the preamps when sound was loud, but when amplifying quiet guitar plucks or chimes from the drumset, you really notice the difference, at least in noise. I cant say much about the sonic quality otherwise, except to say that it was otherwise comparable. First I calibrated the preamps so both gave approximately the same signal level by playing a tone on speakers. Then I normalized sections of the recorded audio of the drums and guitar so that the peak (whatever sound was being used) was the same. The MOTU preamp had much less background noise than that of the firebox. The noise in the firebox preamp sounded very harsh too. Not like tape hiss.


CPU usage:
Well, apple has apparently (in OS 10.4.11) improved their firewire audio drivers, but not completely fixed them.

Now the firebox no longer makes big CPU spikes every 6-10 seconds and in general uses onyl superficially more CPU than the MOTU. But every once in a while - like every 3min, the firebox does still create a big, like 6 sec long CPU spike. I'm skeptical whether this is really caused by the firebox... but I did not see it with the traveller or no interface plugged in. I'm going to continue monitoring the CPU.

I tested idle CPU usage with no audio apps running, and also with a single-track logic pro 8 session loaded, but not playing. I also tested high CPU usage by running an instrument I built in Max/MSP with both interfaces. I used the same buffer size (256 samp, in MaxMSP and Logic) and vector size (256 samp, in MaxMSP) for each interface.

These spikes are in the kernel - the red in activity monitor's CPU history window - not the user space (green) which leads me to believe that they are from the firebox, not from anything I or my user processes are doing.

I didnt get a chance to do the reverb plugins test, so another, real-world test should be done.

Conclusion:
Apple firewire audio driver (and hence firebox) CPU usage is improved in 10.4.11, but not fixed, Preamps on the firebox don't measure up to MOTUs'.