M audio profire 2626 or Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56???

[Phillipbel]

Hi everyone the names Phil I'm from Sydney Australia. I'm building a home studio and I'm tossing up between the M audio pro fire 2626 and the Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56? Im going to be tracking drums so which one is the better one to get? I'm also going to be using pro tools 10 with a mac book pro. Are these the best options I have or do you have any suggestions in the $1000 mark?

Thanks!

[solarfall]

I'm interested too. It's exactly the same dilemma in here.

I've read of people who's 2626 interface had problems of pre-amplification. For example pre 3 to 8 didn't work well.

Never heard of issues on Saffire 56.

In this moment I believe it's fair to spend something more to get a Saffire 56 and have an assurance of no problems and maybe superior preamps.

I think I'll go for that.


Hope this helped.

Giovanni

[adrianww]

I don't know the ProFire 2626, although I haven't heard any specific complaints about it that suggest it's generally a bad piece of gear. I suspect that, like most interfaces in its price range, it does its job more than well enough for home/project studio use.

However, I do have a Liquid Saffire 56 and I love it. Oodles of I/O options, the Liquid pre channels are great for adding a bit of extra tone/colour and the standard pres are plenty clear and open enough. The one thing I would say about the pres though is that, again like most interfaces in its price range, you have to crank them up a little if you don't have a fairly hot signal. Not that that's a problem - they're pretty clean and effective all the way up.

If there was one thing I would change on it, it would be for it to have detented gain controls or some kind of stereo link option for adjacent input channels - just to make it easier to get matched gains on stereo pairs. But that's just a minor niggle, not a deal breaker - it's easy enough to set them right just using the two knobs and keeping an eye on Saffire MixControl for your levels. (Oh, and Saffire MixControl is great too for managing monitor mixes or whatever. Takes a little time to get your head around it at first, but once you have, it's a beaut.)

If you have any specific questions about it, just drop me a pm. Or add them here if you think they'd be of general interest to other folks.

[ Edit: Just occurred to me that one extra useful thing about the LS56 compared to the ProFire is that the mic and line inputs are on separate connectors, rather than combis. So you can leave both connected all the time rather than having to muck around at the back of the interface if you want to swap a channel between mic and line. Could be useful for you if you are going to be tracking drums regularly, but also doing other stuff. You could leave 8 mics up all the time if you wanted and just switch between mic and line ins when you need them. ]

[Chagalj]

I had 2626 for a session in studio - great unit. I guess you cant go wrong with it. But I chose LS56 for my studio after comparing it with FF800 (had it for 6 months) and Orpheus (2 weeks tryout). Heard no difference soundwise, and LS had the best routing capabilities out of 3 (ff800 almost as good there), not to mention 8 preamps by a company most famous for their preamp products.
My main vocal chain is u87-ua110-fmr rnc-rosetta 200. After I bought LS I tried liquid preamps compared with the ua110-rosetta chain. I could be deaf or something, but to me it sounds just as good. Try it and hear for yourself, Im very happy with my LS56.

[mrtuesday]

Don't know the sapphire but very happy with my 2626.

Don't use the pres that much but they've been perfectly usable when I have.

My next step up would be a rme ufx or potentially the new ua apollo but that's at least $2000 not $1000