If you are looking for a great & expandable sound capture device with wonderful preamps, this is your device.

BIG INFO SECTION: I personally use Linux and have tested, used, and enjoyed this box with Ubuntu (using the real-time kernel) and Ardour. On a laptop with 1.8GHz & 4GB ram, I have gotten the latency down to approximately 11.5ms full round trip with 256 frames and 3 periods at 48KHz sample rate. With a slightly better computer (2.8GHz and more ram) I have gotten it down to around 8ms complete loopback.

NOTE: The software control center has only 5 registrations/computers. Be stingy with the computers you register it on. Linux doesn’t require any registration to get it working perfectly, but Windows or Mac are needed to get the firmware updated.

Pros:
* Terrific 72dB gain range clear preamps. 8 of them.
* Awesome build, design, metering
* Pro +24dBu operating level lets you crank the analog
* Auto-switching back-to-front jacks 1 and 2, with balanced inserts on those channels.
* DSP with nicely designed low latency mixer
* Terrific bundled plugins
* Works great as ADAT expander for another interface, even at 96Khz. Clocking solid.
* DSP mixer keeps working even if not used as an interface, USB control still works and you can make a submix into the speaker output pair at low latency.

Cons:
– Line inputs are on combi jacks and they don’t skip preamps, which you must activate the pad on and level match. Pres are totally clean though until…
– Horrifying clipping response. Clip the ADC and it is the worst sound ever, worse than most ADCs this century. So don’t.
– Interface latency shifts constantly, even pings just seconds apart, no idea what’s going on that lets the thing still sound OK with the latency shifting around like that. And overall latency is slow, try Presonus Quantum for vastly better.
– DSP mixer has odd limitations currently, only first 8 sends from computer can be included in Cue mix when used as interface. Ten more sends could have been included.
– Just one headphone jack and no independent stream to it. Quantum has two of each
– No upgrade to bundles for compressor or delay plugins, just the synth stuff

So I keep it as an ADAT expander and maybe they’ll be able to make it into a faster and solider interface someday via firmware. I use the Quantum 26×32 as the interface instead. But I leave this hooked to USB as a low latency digital submixer for its inputs. Good product overall, better than the Focusrite Clarett Octopre that I returned.