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Sound:
Sounds good. There is audible low level whine with the phantom power turned on. Must be the power inverter used to generate the 48V interacting with the A/D converter... Doesn't look like any company can manage to make a low ripple 48V power supply out of 5V at this size/price point. I've never seen one.
On the plus side, the noise is really low level.
Also, last gig I used it with unbalanced cables and I got hum. I imagine this hum goes away if I use a balanced cable. The unit does have TRS outputs. Otherwise a DI box should handle that. Just realize you probably need balanced cables or a DI going into the PA as this box is not grounded.
Feature:
The Link.Firewire is advertised as a 4.6 interface. When you get it home, you will likely have a 2x2 interface. And it will remain so until the engineers at mackie/tapco get around writing the software to support the full feature set. Assuming that happens.
According to the manual, when the full 4.6 feature is completed, the unit will expose 2 stereo input pairs and 3 stereo output pairs which will be hard wired to their respective connectors. This means that the output for the headphones will not be the same as the outputs on the back, unless your software DAW mirrors those outputs for you.
This would be fine by me. Though, some other sound cards (like the Echo indigo DJ) have a mixer applet that allows rerouting the software outputs to their physical counterparts. You should take that into consideration because the manual states the the switch to full 4.6 is irreversible.
But the sad part is that, the feature does not actually exist as of this writing. and you are gambling on whether the company will get around to finish that before your next paying gig.
Ease of Use:
Only a few knobs. Couldn't be easier.
Quality:
Physical quality appears fantastic. Very well put together. Sound quality is acceptable, though there is very low level power inverter whine. Software quality is good, but there is not much software there. The software applet only has a few settings. Much of what the software should be does not exist.
It seems like one of the better chinese made pieces of hardware. I think it will last more than long enough for the 4.6 support to become available.
Value:
I think I got what I paid for. I got a 2 in and 2 out interface that has super low latency and sounds pretty good. As such that is not such a great value. It would be a good value with the missing (but advertised) features. Hopefully it will become a good value at some point in time.
Manufacturer Support:
I got a very polite and timely response notifying me of the lack of 4.6 support as of this writing. The support guy seems friendly enough.
The Wow Factor:
Lots of sex appeal. I bought it because of that, without taking the time to investigate whether the features were really there. Beware of its sex appeal.
Overall:
Depends. If all features are complete, I will keep it for a very long time, otherwise, If I have to buy a new interface for my next paying gig (which demands the use of at least 4 outputs) I will be forced to sell this and buy a sound interface that really has at least 4 outputs.
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