M-Audio Firewire Audiophile 2496 Audio Interface from zZounds.com!

Compact, FireWire-compatible audio/MIDI interface that takes the legacy of M-Audio?s award-winning Audiophile line to the next level.

customer reviews

53 People rated this product : 7 out of 10

8 People wrote reviews

3 out of 10

"3 native serious bugs in one box!"

Feature:
the main feature I noticed is the low standard design

Quality:
when you have got everything on the best possible PC guess what-I can't plug-in my MIDI board because it crashes every three minutes while I play MIDI! This is a crash from the box itself! It can't handle really fast MIDI signals.all the programs I tried while playing midi crash.I spent about 15 hours troubleshooting this bastard to make sure I knew all its quirks but then it has this new one which is completely stuck. Also-the drivers are awful, the last release was about two years ago, while troubleshooting it I found about five complaints of the same problem on lots of different forums, but when I mentioned this obvious problem to the guy he had never heard of it. I had to get turned down all the video acceleration for my graphics card to even make the volume sliders work from their soundcard mixing interface because it's written with a graphics overlay which is showy and completely dysfunctional and different from the traditional early audiophile native Windows-it's glittery trash I am very disappointed

Value:
disappointing

Sound:
high-quality but it cuts out, the direct sound drivers are written so that there is all kinds of interference from different parts of the computer that cut the sound out, but there is worse to come.

Ease of Use:
everything plugs in okay, except it comes with a warning of not plugging in powered FireWire lines without switching off the computer because you might fry your ports.

Support:
nice bloke,he told me to get an add-on card for my FireWire port because it only runs well with Texas instruments FireWire chips. basically if you buy it for anything slightly advanced involving advancer MIDI then you probably will send it back pretty fast if you are wise.

Overall:
is aboard might be okay for some kinds of straightforward use but it is dreadfully unstable and they have misleadingly named it audiophile, just done a single driver update and the driver has fundamental problems of stability. It doesn't have any crash recovery, it interferes with other directxthreads. It is absolutely pathetic

Submitted: 8/4/2007

Style of Music: everything except very cheesy pop

10 out of 10

"I know audio and this is a gem of a product for the right system."

Feature:
I use a Mackie 8 channel mixer, Kenwood MDisk recorder, Sony DAT, and it works flawlessly with all.

Quality:
Not bulletproof, plastic knobs, would NOT change cords over and over, set it up with Quality cabling (I use all AR Master series) and LEAVE it alone. Jacks are NOT very hefty but not cheap either.

Value:
I paid $150 on EBay 2 years ago and consider it one of my best purchases.

Desirability:
I honestly really like the look of this unit but SEXY??? Give me a freak'n break!!! I like the tops graphic and really love the blue led.

Sound:
I have been in the Pro Sound profession for 20+ years now and have used several other M-Audio and competitive products and this ranks up there with ANY of them! MUST have FAST drives preferably Sata 300. And good cpu power (I am using AMD Athlon 64X2 5000+) I use XP and have ZERO problems, NEVER had a pop or a crackle in 2+ years!!!

Ease of Use:
NOT plug and Play but simple to figure out, I say this but I have used several other M Audio products so I am accustomed to this, Some may have a problem innitially.

Support:
Never have had to use them since I have a lot of experiance with both Audio and PCs. But have heard from a few colleages that they SUCK!!!

Overall:
I HIGHLY reccomend this unit!!! BUT as I stated earlier if you have so so drives and a run of the mill pc...LOOK ELSEWHERE....

Submitted: 5/31/2007

Style of Music: Dance (for work but I HATE it) Rock & Alternative suite my personal taste...

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About This Product!

Description

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FireWire Audiophile is a compact, FireWire-compatible audio/MIDI interface that takes the legacy of M-Audio's award-winning Audiophile line to the next level. 4 x 6 audio I/O combines with powerful on-board mixing in a mobile package that's perfect for live performance, home recording, and digital DJ work.

Stereo headphone output with A/B switching between assignable sources allows precuing for DJs and mobile musicians?and the assignable aux bus is perfect for creating dedicated headphone mixes and effect sends. You also get zero-latency hardware direct monitoring, ultra-low latency ASIO software direct monitoring, and 1 x 1 MIDI I/O. FireWire Audiophile even has AC-3 and DTS passthrough for surround sound playback.

Features

4 x 6 24-bit/96kHz I/O

2 x 4 analog operation (RCA)

Digital S/PDIF (coaxial) I/O w/ 2-channel PCM

Digital out also supports AC-3/DTS surround sound

Headphone output with dedicated level control

Flexible software-controlled mixing of hardware and software I/O

Aux sends on all channels and aux output assign allows for dedicated headphone mixes and sends to external effects

User-assignable front-panel level control (output, input, software return, aux send)

Zero-latency hardware direct monitoring

Low-latency ASIO software direct monitoring

Momentary switch for A/Bing two software-assignable headphone sources or switching ASIO monitoring on/off

1 x 1 16-channel MIDI I/O

Power on/off switch with indicator LED

Powered via FireWire bus* or included DC power supply

Two convenient high-bandwidth FireWire ports

Rugged steel construction

Technical Info

Specifications

Frequency Response: 20Hz-40kHz +/-0.40dB, 96kHz sample rate

Dynamic Range: 108dB A-weighted

Signal-to-Noise: 106dB A-weighted

Compatibility

ASIO 2

MME

Sound Manager

DirectX

Mac OS X Core Audio / Core MIDI

Minimum System Requirements - PC

Pentium III 500 MHz or higher

128 MB RAM

Windows 2000 (SP3)/Windows XP (SP1)

DirectX 8.1 or higher

6-pin FireWire port or adapter

Minimum System Requiremennt - Mac

Macintosh G3* 500 MHz or higher w/OS 9.2.2, 128 MB RAM;

G4* 500MHz w/OS 10.1.5 or OS 10.2.6 or greater, 256 MB RAM (OSX)

* G3/G4 accelerator cards not supported; native FireWire ports required

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M-Audio Firewire Audiophile 2496 Audio Interface

customer reviews

"3 native serious bugs in one box!"

"I know audio and this is a gem of a product for the right system."

Technical Info

what our customers say about zZounds

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