PreSonus FireBox Reviews

[brandondrury]

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PreSonus FireBox Description
The PreSonus FireBox is a 24-bit/96kHz FireWire Recording System with a 6-in, 10-out computer recording interface that fits in the palm of your hand. It boasts 2 crystal-clear Class A preamps with 45dB gain, ultra-wide 10Hz-50kHz frequency response, and professional 24-bit/96kHz converters with 110dB dynamic range for a big, musical sound.

It has 2 mic/instrument preamps with 48V phantom power conveniently located on the front panel. On the back you'll find 2 balanced TRS line inputs, 6 balanced TRS analog outs, MIDI I/O, and S/PDIF I/O. You can record through 6 inputs and playback through 8 outputs simultaneously. It also has a stereo headphone output and the main volume control on the front panel.

The FireBox is compatible with both Windows XP and Mac OS X and comes with Steinberg's Cubase LE 48-track, 24-bit/96K recording software. It's also compatible with many popular ASIO/WDM and Core Audio based applications including Sonar, Cubase, Nuendo, Logic, Digital Performer, Premier, and many others.

[Browndog]

Quality: 7
I use this for backing track playback for a band. It is ideal as it is small.

Reliability: 8
Worked straight out of the box and never missed a beat.

Overall Rating: 8
Only down side is you cannot monitor the input when recording with it.
Great for my application. 2 channels of backing music and 1 channel for click track.

[ediblecastle]

Quality: 8
solidly built little fella. I can only compare it to a few other audio interfaces I've used in the past (an old USB Tascam USsomething, m-audio mobile pre, a tapco Link.USB and a cheap behringer mixer) and it sounds much better to those rightly so, cheaper, interfaces.

Reliability: 10
I've had no problems with reliability, though I do only use it for the sole purpose of getting my sounds into my computer. I haven't exactly stretched it.

Overall Rating: 7
I'm not sure how hot the preamps are in other firewire audio interfaces. But on the firebox they are very quiet. You'll need another mic pre if you're using a dynamic mic through this. Which I sadly wasn't aware of at the time of buying. Works great with my RØDE NTK condenser mic though!

The headphones output is very loud. the knob turns all the way from 1-11 (heh) but I never go above 2-3.

One other problem I had and didn't notice until I tried using both the front INs was that on my model, the 2nd input has an annoying high pitch whine noise. Reading the Pre-sonus forums, this doesn't seem to be the norm - with a few cases of it here and there.

[alco123]

Quality: 8
I’m having difficulty interfacing a relatively new PC laptop running Vista 32 bit (SP1) 2 GB RAM, and the Presonus FIREBOX I just bought. What I’m looking for is a latency-free ability to record “realtime” MIDI to USB digital drums onto stereo tracks, using TOONTRACKS' Superior Drummer 2.0 digital drums on the PC… and recording them digitally onto a Roland VS 2480CD utilizing S/PDIF Coaxial connectivity. Are you with me so far? This is proving to be more difficult than going ASIO out into the analog inputs on the VS 2480. I seem to be getting about 10 ms of latency from the Coaxial I/O plus a loud SMPTE input noise factor (RF?) as well. I need to be able to monitor the drums in “real time” from the Roland VS 2480CD workstation (under 4 ms latency).



I’m an experienced engineer / producer… most recently with 7 yrs experience on the Roland VS 2480CD under my belt… so I am very familiar with various audio setups. This issue may be an incompatibility between my ACER Aspire 5520 laptop (Vista 32bit SP1) and the Presonus FireBox unit, as the digital connection between the FIREBOX and Roland VS 2480 seems just fine until I insert the firewire cable coming from the laptop into the FIREBOX. (I can also output digitally directly from the laptop… which seems to work just fine going directly into the Roland VS 2480CD, except for the latency of digital drivers.) I'm wondering if anyone in the forum has had a similar experience and perhaps has found a solution or workaround for this set of issues.


Reliability: 7
The FIREBOX seems to be well made and reliable... though I have my concerns about the SPDIF output seemingly to include RF interference carried through from the laptop when attached to the Roland DAW. I'm looking into RF filtering for SPDIF Coax at this point... if such a thing is possible. Perhaps simple DI boxes will work. I'll be trying that next.

Overall Rating: 8
It's too soon to tell if I can recommend the FIREBOX. I'm really hoping to solve all set up issues, then properly test it. I really was impressed by the dynamic output from the headphone jack.

[patwick]

HELP HELP HELP.............. my new firebox deosn"t accept flash uploads...........?????

and another probleme my windows with parallele on mac osx10.5 doesn"t reconizethe card at instal.........

for mac ony it's e plesure (without uploads.......rrrrrr)

HELP HELP HELP.........

patricklarque@msn.com (i m french.......)