If You Had the Choice? which way would you go?

[reido113]

I have narrowed it down to these 2 choices for my small studio.

I would just like to see which you would choose.

*my scenario (CubaseSX3 possibly Nuendo later, 16 channels of "hands on control", I need 16 pre's and 6-8 aux's. I mix in the box but don't mind steppin' out.

option 1 - Tascam Dm3200 with firewire card

option 2 - 2 Presonus FireStudios (16 channels and it has a neat zero latency monitoring mixer) and the Mackie MCU Pro with 8 channel extension.

-It seems the costs would be close to the same, I am mainly concerned with pre's quality and equipment integation, durability, control of DAW etc...


Thank you in advance for your input. I appreciate it.

[StefanColson]

Not entirely sure how the pres and converters stack up on those two units, but with the Tascam setup you'll have the following benefits:
More and more flexible I/O (with the option of adding expansion cards)
Hassle-free zero latency monitoring
Much more flexible in headphone sends
A monitor controller
A flexible digital patching system
A real mixer (interfacing with other devices)
Surround capabilities, especially with the surround monitor card
Internal effects (not stellar, but usable for secondary tracks)
Convenient verb for tracking
Plus with the meter bridge you get great monitoring for all channels, and the DM3200 will look much more impressive if you have clients coming into the studio.