I use the Layla. Kidneytheives use Echo hardware and so does Smart Studios (Garbage, Nirvana, and more). It works wonders with Sonar, and all other software I own. I'm thinking about getting a Darla just so that she and Layla can be together. Romantic, isn't it? In all honesty--I have never, ever, ever had a technical issue with the Layla. I have told several bands/artists/studio owners to purchase the Layla without a second thought. - Eve Alacu, Asy9

I take off one point here, but only one. I've found that if you don't keep a fan hanging over the layla, she burns out and dies. Keep her cool and she'll keep on ticking. Past that, there are no flaws that I am aware of.

At the time, we spent a thousand dollars a pop (we had two of them), and they were -- and still are -- worth every cent. (If you find it anywhere else for any cheaper, it's a great deal!)

I didn't deal with the company that made this product but the owner of the studio did, and he had only nice things to say about the people, support and product.

Oh yeah. I just like to stare at her while she sits there on my rack, cooling under that little fan of mine. Oh, she's a beaut. She deserves better than me.

Electronic

Sound is transparent and clean, very low self noise. Excellent dynamic range and basically, what you hear with your ears will play back from your monitors the next morning.

As far as features go, what do you want? 16 ins and 16 outs (8x8 analogue, 8x8 digital). The outputs are very useful for creating auxilary sends for headphone monitors from your DAW software (I use Sonar XL 2.2) It really does one task--converts analogue to digital and back again--and it does that task well. It is an AD/DA converter that they threw some MIDI ports on the back of, mostly for MMC Automation I would imagine, don't let the lack of MIDI ports bug you, you can spend $20-$50 for a USB MIDI expander and get all the ports you want.

Very durable, no problems, they guy who says it get real hot, probably needs to leave some air gaps between his racked devices, it runs cooler than my PC box does most of the time, and much cooler than my PRE-AMPS. Very stable, hasn't crashed on me yet while operating under Windows XP. I occasionally have a problem with software not wanting to share the device outputs at the same time, this causes me to have to close both programs and then restart the one I need most. Most of the time, this is not a problem, just if say I want to run Windows Media Player in the back ground while I run Sonar, i.e. I forget to close Windows Media Player and I lose Outputs 1 & 2 in my software, because Media Player is using them. So, I close both and they work in Sonar.

Costs a pretty penny, but right now it really is the best thing out there for the price

Sorry, we're not speaking to each other at this time! ;-)

Acoustic Rock