PreSonus Inspire 1394 4X4 Firewire Recording Interface Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Now this is the way computer peripherals are supposed to work - 15 minutes or so after opening the box, I was laughing my way through my first home recording effort. No tearing my hair out, no frantic searching on-line for new drivers, no pouring through obscure FAQs looking for solutions... it simply works! Mind you, this is with Mac OSX, 10.4.11.
Audio quality is plenty good to my middle-aged ears, and completed recordings downloaded to my IPod sound just as good as any commercial tune. Sure, crank the gain up full and add the boost and you can hear a little bacon frying in the background, but more sedate settings are very quiet indeed.
The absence of buttons and knobs on the unit is fine as well, the on-screen control panel has proven fast and easy to use.
Bottom line? The Presonus Inspire is simple, inexpensive, and performs well.


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Now compliant with Intel Macs! The INSPIRE 1394 is a revolutionary FireWire Recording System featuring professional quality 24-bit/96k analog to digital conversion rate, four simultaneous inputs, software control panel as well as audio recording and production software giving you the smallest, most flexible, most affordable and all-inspiring computer recording studio ever! What's InsideThe INSPIRE 1394 is loaded with state of the art components and technology enabling the easiest computer recording experience ever. The INSPIRE 1394 installs effortlessly on both Windows XP and Macintosh-based computers and works seamlessly with virtually all popular recording software including Cubase, Nuendo, Sonar, Cakewalk, Logic, Logic Express, Digital Performer and many others. The microphone and instrument preamplifiers loaded in the INSPIRE 1394 are designed to deliver ultra-low noise, high gain preamplification for all types of microphones and instruments needed for professional quality recordings. Ins and OutsThe front panel of the INSPIRE 1394 features two custom-designed PreSonus microphone preamplifiers with +48V phantom power and two instrument Hi-Z inputs. The back of the INSPIRE features selectable line or phono (with RIAA filter) inputs great for all types of keyboards, samplers, drum machines and turntables. Outputs on the INSPIRE 1394 include RCA unbalanced and mini TRS jacks as well as headphone output. Software Control PanelThe INSPIRE 1394 is comp...

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PreSonus FireStudio Project 10x10 FireWire Recording Interface Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I purchased the Firestudio Project a year ago and have been thrilled with its performance.
The external LEDs are a huge plus for setting your levels, and the eight XLR/quarter-inch inputs are very convenient. You also have phantom power available for all inputs.
The latency with this unit is minimal with a PC running Vista in a stripped down form as recommended by one of the major music retailer web sites.
Cubase LE is fairly simple to use, and it's easy to export your individual tracks for use in other DAWs like ProTools, if you intend to mix in a studio. Another note regarding Cubase: out of the box the program defaults to 16-bit recording, and you will definitely want to change the bit depth to 24-bit, particularly if recording in a noisy home studio environment. The noise floor, especially on vocal recordings with high gain on a condenser mic, is considerably higher with 16-bit. So, make sure you have a computer that is beefy enough to handle 24-bit because it does use more system resources.
The FireStudio also comes packaged with some nice VST plug-ins including instruments by Halion, some of which are pretty passable like the Jazz Piano.
When researching interfaces, my biggest concern was compatibility with hardware, as I had read some horror stories about interfaces not working with FireWire drivers correctly on certain PCs or Macs. This one worked perfectly out of the box with a store-bought HP desktop, so my experience was great in that regard.
My only complaint is that this unit was supposed to come with the Presonus EyeQ software - a multi-band EQ and spectrum analyzer, which was pictured on the box, but not in the box. I've read that others got left out of the EyeQ party as well, and I have e-mailed tech support but not yet gotten a response after one week.

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