Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55549 in Consumer Electronics

Customer Reviews

M-audo FW1814
Absolute feestbak!
When I opened the package, the construction was slightly disappointing - although the case is metal, knobs are plastic. Nice feature is the pad button which attenuates input signal. The gain on this thing is amazing! I used to record with an old Motu 828 FW interface and needed to boost the signal after recording. Now i have to make it more silent! Mic preamps are A ok. Latency is about 3 ms input and 6 output on my 1.7 centrino notebook at 128 samples. I had some problems on installation and my pc did not always detect it when turned on. A driver update corrected this problem completely. When using Ableton Live 5 I've worked with about 5 midi tracks and 13 audio tracks simultaneously and this gives a 'pop' or 'click' only very ocasionally even at this low latency and over 50% processor use. I think it is a very good product in this price range. a friend of mine has the newest Motu 828 which cost double than this one. Only advantage of the Motu in my view is that it can be used as a stand-alone device. O yeah.. bought it in America, but live in Belgium so the adaptor that came with the unit did not word. Got another one for 11 EUR. Total price paid was 431 EUR which is about 170 EUR cheaper than the cheapest price in Belgium. Yippie!! One last remark: another friend has the same unit, but uses a Mac and he had to contact his helpdesk to correct some config problem-- now it works like a charm and he records 8 tracks simultaneously using bus power at 3 ms and 122 samples!

Cool interface
I love this little interface and really appreciate all the warnings that M-Audio placed throughout the packaging about never turning on/off the device while plugged into your powered-on computer. It works great and the pre-amp does it's job. More expensive pre-amps probably sound better, but I'm happy. All the other inputs and outputs other than the first 2 mic/instrument ports (192kHz) have 92kHz sound quality I think, which would have been nice if it were higher. Other than that everything just works once the driver's installed. The software version of the interface which allows you to change settings and control the device from the computer can be confusing at first, but is very convenient once you get it. Also, for those who are new to ADAT and have optical enabled speakers or computers, etc. don't bother plugging it into the ADAT port on the interface; same plug, different purpose. Overall, lots of great features for the price.