our band has one for live PA and recording. it's most redeeming feature is that it is about the cheapest way to get 16 mic inputs into your DAW. but that's about it.
the pres aren't unusable, just pretty benign and characterless. i find them lacking a bit in gain too... often you're pushing them hard to get decent signal.
the eq is lame, just very inefficient, you're grabbing 6-10dB to carve out spaces that take 2-4dB on other mixers.
firewire works well but lately our unit has been losing the firewire connection to the DAW randomly, costing me the ability to record gigs and generally dfegadme off.
the Mackie Onyx's would be far better options but the 1640+firewire board is twice the price of the Phonic. the other option is to get a regular live mixer with direct outputs that you can mult off from and use a firewire interface with 8 analogue ins and an ADAT input (MOTU 8Pre, Presonus FireFace, etc) and something like this (
SM Pro Audio - A08) and you've got 16 inputs.