Presonus Firebox vs. Edirol FA-66

[ttauri]

Anyone have experience with either of these?

Actually just looking at them for laptop DJing, so don't care much about the pres, just want a small 4-line-out box. Worried mainly about: dependability and DAC quality.

Peece,
T. Tauri

[DrDeltaM]

The FA-66 is directly supported in OSX, it uses a driver included in OSX, so if you're on Mac, it might be a better solution.

[Methlab]

the firebox is awesome..sounds great and has very smooth pres. It's what I have been using, and I love it..make sure your firewire interface on your computer is good though.

[lean]

Just picked up a Firebox this weekend. Actually, two of them--the first died within an hour; must have had some kind of manufacturing defect. But #2 is still going strong after a few days. I'm impressed with the sound quality and # of ins/outs for the price.
Headphone amp is nice and loud. Haven't tried the preamps yet so I can't tell you about that. One other cool thing is that it's a 'class compliant' firewire device so it doesn't even need drivers on my Mac. It's probably rugged enough to survive gigging.

[ttauri]

Originally Posted by lean

Just picked up a Firebox this weekend. Actually, two of them--the first died within an hour; must have had some kind of manufacturing defect. But #2 is still going strong after a few days.

Hmm, that's a little worrisome (about the first one).

Lean, Methlab: any sense how hot you can run the signal into something else? I'd be plugging into a DJ mixer, and I had an experience last week where the mixer at the club only had one working channel that night so I was using the software to do all the blends and stuff, but with the emi 2/6 I'm currently using, the output was barely enough with the DJ mixers gain, channel fader, and main volume all cranked. (Partly 'cause I prepare tracks pretty conservatively on the loudness tip, and then I also had to budget for some headroom in the software mixer).

Peece,
T. Tauri

[lean]

Originally Posted by ttauri

Hmm, that's a little worrisome (about the first one).
Lean, Methlab: any sense how hot you can run the signal into something else? I'd be plugging into a DJ mixer, and I had an experience last week where the mixer at the club only had one working channel that night so I was using the software to do all the blends and stuff, but with the emi 2/6 I'm currently using, the output was barely enough with the DJ mixers gain, channel fader, and main volume all cranked. (Partly 'cause I prepare tracks pretty conservatively on the loudness tip, and then I also had to budget for some headroom in the software mixer).

I actually got the Firebox to replace an EMI 2/6 myself. Was relatively happy with the big blue emagic ting until I discovered that (at least on the mac) its drivers didn't tell the truth with regards to latency. Had it set to 128 samples and yet was experiencing a 37 ms. delay when sending signals out and back in again for external processing. The worst part was the delay seemed to change randomly so I couldn't just factor it in automatically. The Firebox works as it should with no drivers and has much better sound to boot. Not home right now though so I can't compare the levels for you.