More Talk On Interfaces, affordable, stable firewire? Options

[JPSpecial]

Others have been talking about audio interfaces and the issues of usb and firewire. Latency seems enough of an issue in usb that firewire offers the better solution. But which one? The firewire 410 has gotten a lot of negative feedback. The Motu is an excellent product but too expensive for a hobbyist like myself. What about Presonus' firebox, the scaled down version of the firepod? Any user reviews or comments?

I assume firebox would work with Logic. I know it comes with Cubase SE, which I understand demands a lot from your computer.

[arvidtp]

I am interested in this presonus interface too, but I am waiting to hear some mac-centric reviews of it - particularly its drivers. That is so important - it makes or breaks a good piece of hardware. Apparently the firePOD is very good in this respect, but I have yet to hear too much from the mac side of things. Because the Firestation, presonus's first firewire interface had miserable Yamaha mLAN drivers apparently. That is different than the drivers for the new presonus stuff, but I still want to make sure.

Firebox PDF sheet: http://presonus.com/pdf/fireboxcut.pdf

The other thing that they mention in the pdf sheet for the firebox is "low latency monitoring" instead of zero latency. What exactly does this mean? Just how much latency when listening to the raw sound of the preamps out the headphone jack? I assume this is because internal routing is controlled by software they will supply with the unit, and therefore must be digitally switched with by definition at least one sample of latency. I doubt the audio has to come into the computer to monitor it, as that would be plain aweful, so it probably will be less than 64 samples, but any monitoring latency I am wary of... Why do they never list the details of latency and stuff in the specs of audio interfaces? That is important to me too, especially enjoying doing things live/improv as I do.

What do you all think?

[iShawn]

I assume firebox would work with Logic. I know it comes with Cubase SE, which I understand demands a lot from your computer.

Mac uses Core Audio. Almost every software I've seen supports Core Audio (Think of it like a way the computer reads audio input) so yes, Logic will work, so will Digital Performer, etc.

I am interested in this presonus interface too, but I am waiting to hear some mac-centric reviews of it - particularly its drivers. That is so important - it makes or breaks a good piece of hardware. Apparently the firePOD is very good in this respect, but I have yet to hear too much from the mac side of things.

I emailed Presonus because I am interested in the Firepod as well. Every driver device is the same for both Windows and Mac. Nothing different they said. So, I would figure it trustable. They also said that Multiple linking will soon be an option for people opting for multiple ins.

I don't think latency will be a problem. You said improv, so i assume (like myself) that you play some jazz. In jazz you hardly record one-at-a-time or if you don't you don't really get the feel of the other players. For jazz musicians it seems like a nice, editable recording setup would be perfect for jazz or a small recording jig. I don't think latency will be a problem if you all are gettting a good mix intot he comptuer and then messing with it later. Latency for the Firepod (so I assume the same for the Firebox since it's just a smaller version) is zero because you are listening to what is going into the interface, not what is going into the software and back into the interface (if you're EQ). That is what I know (Or think I know)

Please correct me if wrong.
Hope I helped somewhat.