Superior A/D D/A conversion. I checked the websites for AKM and Crystal Sound for the respective converters and found that Emu was using the flagship, absolute best converters from both companies. Sound quality is incredibly clean. Even the little hiss that is there is warm and consitent, with no clicking at all.

Plenty of extras. A barrage of software: lite versions of Cubase, Sonar, and Live, Proteus vsti, etc. Enough to easily record with professional results with just the purchase of this sound card. The digital mixer that comes with this package takes a bit of getting used to though. You need to open a completely new mixer session if you change sample rates. And the DSP effects which come with the card are only good up to 48khz sampling rates. One the plus side, the ASIO driver works very well. And there's an RCA jack with a ground screw allowing you to plug a phonograph directly into your sound card. I know of no other sound card with this feature. Also, it has two midi I/Os.

The build looks very solid. The audio dock has a metal casing. I just wish the DSP effects chips, which only go to 48khz sampling, supported the sampling rate of the card itself which is full range 192khz.

For the price, you're not going to find anything even close to it. To get 120dB noise ratio and 192khz sampling, your next lowest is MOTUs $1799.95 HD192.

I did have to contact customer support due to clips in my recording. I reached a live representative very quickly who told me that I was dealing with sound drop outs and gave several suggestions, including pointing me out to a website that had numerous tips on DAW optimization. Indeed, when I zoomed in on the clips, they were all a case of the wave file dropping suddenly and momentarily to the base line. I ended up switching out my motherboard to a newer one I happened to recently purchase but had not yet installed, and the clips went away, so I can't really fault Emu for the problem. On another note, Emu is one of the few sound card makers with 64 bit drivers available for download.

The converters, oh those converters.

Active Musician

Psychedelic Trance

Sounds great, crystal clear and transparent. Can't say that I have any high dollar gear to compare it to, but it blows away the usb interface I used to use. I get great low latency into Max/MSP and into Cubase VST (which comes with it), around 5-10 ms; though I might get even better- haven't tried yet. I use it for processing of live sound during performance- and works great for this. The E-mu ASIO drivers are nice and the software flexibility is phenomenal.

8 in/out plus all the digital ports, two nice preamps (nice too), plus a phono preamp, firewire port, all the sync jacks I can ever imagine using, 8 mini-jack outputs, built-in effects (which are decent though not world class), and extremely flexible software routing. Only thing I can think of that is missing is a Hi-Z input (don't know if the preamps are designed for that or not), and a cardbus adapter to use with a laptop (maybe in the future?). Overall quite full featured.

quality seems fine- not really road worthy, but plenty sturdy for studio use.

hands down the most bang for the buck. I looked everywhere for an interface around this price and couldn't find anything near this quality with a similar feature set.

haven't dealt with it.

looks fine to me.

Modern Electro-Acoustical Classical

Sound quality is excellent. Crisp, clear, very low noise. I have never tried the Lynx or any of the highest end soundcards, but I can't imagine they are much better than the 1820m -- of course, they cost substantially more $$$

More than enough ins and outs for my needs

Excellent build quality, but I gave it a 9 rather than a 10 for the rare bug I've had with the drivers (boot up to no sound, I have to change frequency, then change it back to unmute the box... E-mu recognizes this bug with the latest 1.70 drivers and a fix will be out for 1.80). Also, the box gets fairly hot when running, so be sure to keep it ventilated

This card is an amazing value. If mine broke, I'd buy another

I have heard cust support is not very responsive, but I haven't had to use them. Giving them a 9 because they seem to put out drivers reasonably often and because one of their techs is active and helpful on the 1820m Unofficial Forum. If I did have an issue, I'd probably ask there before asking E-mu customer support, anyway, and I'd get an answer fast

This is a compelling product at a breakthrough price

Pianist

Classical, Jazz

The converters are awesome you can hear everything.

It has lots of in/outs. Midi that's flawless and a firewire connection.

No blemishes, it's very sturdy.

Never had to call them. It's like I have something by maytag

Gotta have it!

Producer, Mixing engineer

techno, r&b, rap

Didn't hear any better so far

The features are impressive..not too many gears for more expensive prices can beat it

It seems a solid piece of gear

Well, the ratio "features/money" is the best on a market, I believe

Never had a deal with..

Very well attractive gear:)

Arranger

Christian music of any types

Brilliant sound! After upgrading from the audiophile 2496 (which i thought was good), I feel like I can actually reach out and touch the difference in quality... pro sound!

Packed with features... the inbuilt effects, the numerous audio routing options, the warm preamps and all the I/Os go to make this a soundcard which offer you everything

Never owned a better product! the audiodock is solid and has nice shiny finish!

Definitely value for money!

Never tried... but the manual was good enough to guide me thru installation and usage...

I already have it! And I'd recommend this to anyone else without thinking twice...

Professional music composer

World, electronica, rock, jazz, classical

Sound is extremely good. CDs and DVDs played through it sound amazingly sweet.

A good collection of features and software accessories.

Cosmetically speaking it is very nice looking. The controls are tight and the finish is top notched. I wouldn't use it on the road. But if you needed to move it around, I would not worry about it.

Compared to similar items in its price range. It is a very good buy.

Support? Uh, ... not very good. Three days have passed since I contacted them and all I have received was an automated email reply. It said they would try and reply to my questions within 48 hours. Hmmm...

Sorry but I can't say I will keep it around. It sounds great but the software interface is a "real pain" to use. The unit feels solid and seems to be very well made. But I am going to stick to using my Zoom MRS802CD for now.

Active Musician

Folk, Country Rock, Jazz

We tested this along with an Echo Mona, Aardvark Q10, MOTU 828mkII, and Metric Halo unit. The 1820M won hands down against EVEYTHING except the Metric Halo. There is nothing we have yet to see, under $1,000 that can top this unit, it is simply amazing.

Pre's, word clock, it has everything you need.

We gave it an 8, because MOTU, and Metric Halo are more sturdy by far, this this is nice.

Rather you do hip hop/r&b/rap you will NOT find anything else that will do the job this can, for even TWICE the price.

Havent had to use it, so I can't give it a bad rating.

We will be purchasing 5 units.

Rap, R&B

I have to agree with the person who also rated this product. I have placed this against my Aardvark Q10, and I was shocked. The quality is as good, if not better, the converters BEAT those on the MOTU 828, the pre's are VERY clean. I'll give it a 10, because unless you feel like spending $1,200 on a Lynx Two card, with an external pre, then you will just not get quality like this.

Nothing fancy, just a clean unit.

I've seen much better built, but this was very good.

This sells for $499.99, you get a word clock, pre's worth twice the units suggested price, converters worth the price of the unit, if I had made this, I would have sold it at $900+

Contacted them, very fast and reliable.

It's attractive, techy looking, compact.

Hardcore Rap/Gangsta Rap/Rock/Jazz

This thing sounds amazing. I did a test with a CAD vocal mic at 24bit 48khz and then at 24bit 192khz and the vocal was definatley richer at the higher setting although both sounded great. I recorded my first full song on this thing at 88.2 and it is the best recording I have ever done... by FAR... and the easiest, didn't have to spend hours upon hours doing EQ tweeks to get all fitting into the mix like on lesser cards. If I was an Evil person I would tell you to go buy something else cause this thing sounds so good I would wanna keep it out of as many hands as possible.

Has alot of features although the higher rate you use the amount of features drops. Once you go over 24bit 48khz then you lose all the DSP effects. Not a big deal though if you are looking for a broadcast quality. The effects are mid-range quality but they do sound good.

There is a learning curve on the DSP (patch mix) but be patient and read or call support, you'll get it fast. It is NOT plug and play but if you have mixer experience and or read up at Emu it becomes natural.

So far so good but I just got it Spet 8, 2006

I have never owned somthing so pro like this though although I researched for over a month looking for comparable units and nothing even close in this price range.

They are really great so far... had a few calls into them prior to buying this unit and a couple after.

I own it NOTE: Emu is coming out with a PCI version of the 1616m and rumor has it they will stop making the 1820m so if you want this quailty and more ins and outs better grab an 1820m before it is too late.

years and years of music experience live and recording

Rock to EZ listening

at the moment, it doesn't get better than this for the price. The edirol systems are quite good but this guy glows both night and day.

The Patch Mix is an awesome interface if you give a little time to understand how it works. I have two mics, an external Valve compressor, Reverb unit, Aural exciter, Mic preamp, 2 headphones(without headphone amp), CD Recorder, pair of active monitors & Cubase Sx3. I don't have a mixer so run everthing to and fro the dock (including inserts). The only replacement for this kind of integration is digital mixer.

These days all people care about is quailty of this or that...if you want to produce audio that competes with the big boys for a buget, I'm really not sure it gets better than this for now considering the cost involved.

People talk about Creative... well I think it's EMU doing their thing and Creative footing the bill for the development of these cards. If it was just EMU on the pack, less people would have bothered but it would have been the same card... Put Toyota, Kentucky Fried Chicken or Viagra on pack, if it works well, it works!!!!!

I asked questions about the 1820m and 1820 converters, they replied in detail in 24hrs. i think that's good enough...

From the day I heard it had the same converters with Digidesign Flagship (HD3 system)and cost less than pack they ship the HD3 system in, I wanted it badly!!!

Recording Engineer

just use it and stick with it. Its a little complicated for beginners but it didn't take long before it was working to even more than the expectations I had for it. THANKS

I don't know what the best Accessory was they all came in handy and i've learned that each one can be used to bring more explicite and exciting,(high quality) sound.

I've never used anything like this it did all that I expected and more. Its truly amazing.

The price seemed a little high at first. But its proven its worth by leaps and bounds. I've even talked friends into buying it just because they've seen what I can do with it.

It was amazing. I was having a little trouble with putting it together and getting it to adapt to my computer. I made one call and got all the help I could ever want. It was amazing how quick I got 5 differant opinions from specialists.

It looks High Tech and Extremely flashy. It makes me feel professional even though I use it in my home office.

I used to have an audiophile card, then a motu828mkii, I returned it and got the emu. The sound is superlative, I have mackie 626 monitors and I turned them WAY up, It sounded so good I couldn't believe it! Running out to my lexicon and back, the noise floor is still very low (going analog), compared to the motu which was too noisy with that for me.

The flexibility of the patchmix is really cool. The downside is that I can't get a wave/host higher than 48khz, but it sounds so good I am overlooking that - for now. I'm not too experienced with this stuff yet- i've always had trouble with asio, etc.

high quality build - everything I noticed was gold plated. Doesn't slide around, good rubber footers! Looks really nice on my desk. Very convenient for headphones with the knob right there. Lights indicate sample rate. I like it - Ok?

The sound is to die for, very high quality build, good manual, hardware features packed to the brim, - also software bundle is impressive and fully functioning -wavelab lite, cubase 5.1.

sweet

amateur musician - guitar, piano

ambient, jazz, chill, rock, lounge, etc

Unbeatable A/D conversion... (besides maybe a lynx card)

"Strip" Mixer is the best software interface I have seen.

Solid/Sturdy... The knobs on my pres didnt line up properly. Not a big deal. Minor flaw

Cant beat it!

Webpage is easy to navigate/find newest drivers.

Dead sexy...