| It's finally here! Haven't had a chance to thoroughly test it out yet, but it is up and running with M-Powered 7.4 (after the cs3 update). Flexibility looks really promising...light years beyond the FW1814 I was using until now. One thing though...not entirely sure, but the outputs on this thing may be -10 dBu balanced. They haven't released detailed specs yet, but after hooking it up to my LSR4328s, I had to change the input level on the monitors because they were distorting all to hell. Of course, maybe I am reading the push switch on the monitors wrog, and it is actually set to +4 now. It isn't clearly marked, so I can't be sure.
One thing is for sure...this is one sexy looking beast. Puts the 1814 to shame in both looks and build quality. The whole thing feels very solid. No loosey goosey knobs or connections on this puppy so far as I can tell. My one qualm with the design is that each set of line and mic inputs (1-8) are wired to the same jack (one of those multi-jack deals), creating a potential hassle if you're using a rack system with a patch bay, as I am. Definitely not a wire it and forget kind of setup.
Initial thoughts on audio playback quality...it definitely seems much cleaner and more open sounding than the 1814. Not as "dusty" sounding to my ears, with more detail and sparkle.
Anyhow, I will try to poste a more in-depth review after I've had an opportunity to put it through its paces. |