Tascam US-1641 USB 2.0 Audio Interface Review

[Ryan D]

Hello everybody, as some of you may know, a couple months ago I made the dive from a TonePort UX2 to this shiny new interface, the US-1641 in an effort to get more simultaneous inputs for recording. At the time, the FirePod was in my sights, but $500 was simply too much to spend at the time. I needed something cheaper, but with the same amount of flexibility and, well, usefulness.

I was drawn to the $370 ($400 - $30 rebate) price tag of the US-1641, but at the same time, repelled by the USB 2.0 interface. Why? I don't know. The industries have given USB 2.0 a bad name. However, in an environment where a FireWire device competes against a USB 2.0 device on a card with nothing else plugged in, the USB 2.0 device is faster.

Firewire hits a constant speed of 400mb/s. USB 2.0 has a shared bandwith with all other devices plugged into the same card of 480mb/s. When nothing else is plugged in, all 480mb/s of bandwith go to that one device on the USB ports. So really, all you need to do is buy a $10 PCI card with a few USB 2.0 ports and your USB 2.0 device will function like a FireWire device (if you have nothing else plugged into the new USB card. You can plug all your other stuff into your motherboard or something.

However, I went ahead and bought it, and in two days the package was on my doorstep. I don't have a rack, so I just placed the US-1641 on the top of my desk. This worked fine for me. Right out of the box, I plugged the US-1641 into my computer and the driver and firmware updates took little more than a minute. The process was simple and quick - something I really appreciated.

It came with a copy of Cubase 4 LE but honestly, the digital e-licensing bull#@&* that they make you go through a) is frustrating and b) failed to work at all for me, so I'll stick with my own program.

The workmanship on the device is excellent. Tascam really pushed their assembly line to the limit when they manufactured this device. The shiny, dark blue finish with the chrome knobs is visually stunning, and the lights next to each gain knob for the inputs turn a nice shade of green (until you approach the clipping level, from which it turns orange to a flat-out red, so you can know when you have to man the knobs). Everything is well-in place and easy to access, and I think that's great.

Me, being the idiot that I am, re-plugged in my UX2 into the same set of USB ports and ran both at the same time, so at the time I was recording 5 microphones, digital input via SPDIF (RCA) from the UX2, and a bass direct into an instrument input with a special switch to activate a preamp. Along with that, my USB keyboard, mouse, and USB-MIDI cable were plugged in.

During recording, I had no clicks, pops, or dropouts (however some dropouts would occur occasionally, but for what I was doing, I was stunned). The rumors that USB 2.0 sucked dissolved away as I fell more and more in love with my new shiny box with cables dangling out of it.

Anyways, for the sake of recording, I bought a 5-port USB card for the PCI slot in my computer for $5 off of Newegg.com and installed it, and now I am running everything at top speed with not a single dropout. I love this box. It has 8 XLR inputs, 4 1/4" inputs with a -10/+4db switch for each pair, two more 1/4" inputs with a toggle-able switch to activate some preamp thing inside, midi in/out, and SPDIF in/out. Phantom power has two switched, for microphones 1-4 and 5-8.

There's also 2 pairs of 1/4" TRS jacks for outputs you can configure in your program, and one thing that I really like is that it allows you to fade the input that your monitors are sending between the live input and what your computer is sending, so with the turn of a knob you can tweak settings live and then play it back through your computer after.

One last thing. The latency goes as low as 49 sample (2ms), but rests comfortably at 64 as well. No pops or clicks.

The only things I didn't like about the US-1641:
The headphone jack only sends live input. I was hoping I could mix with some headphones, but was annoyed to find that that was not a possibility.

There's a minor driver error, but it CAN BE FIXED. The current drivers (1.01) will cause a latency problem to occur after recording large audio files for around 3-5 minutes. The problem is easily solved by changing the latency or any other parameter in the control panel. You'll have to do that between each recording. Or, you can use the ASIO4ALL drivers (which are free) from asio4all.com and not have to worry about it at all.

Oh yeah, and Tascam tech support is out hiding under a rock. They're very hard to reach, but their products are extremely stable, and if you DO need service, they have a number you can call. I've never had to get a Tascam product serviced, though, so I can't say how responsive they are over the phone.

Thanks to BBJones for this (I completely forgot about daisychaining!) - Daisychaining is currently not an available feature, but it has been stated that drivers making this usable are possibly in development.

Generic conclusion (as always):

All in all, I think the US-1641 was an excellent value for the money, and I will have no need to upgrade anytime soon. Even at $380 (current price counting the rebate), the extra $10 spent for an extra PCI-USB2.0 card is extremely minor, and in some cases, unnecessary. I love this thing. With the money saved, I can put some in for a nice, quality pair of monitors.

If anyone has any other questions, feel free to ask, and I can answer them to the best of my ability.

[BBJones]

Just wanted to add that I also picked this unit up and so far am very happy with it.

I replaced 2 PCI units (Madudio 1010 + a Delta 44).

Please note, USB 2.0 is faster than Firewire.

Also note the Tascam unit currently does not support chaining of any kind (something you can do with firewire units like the firepod). The Tascam site said it didn't have a driver for it yet, so that hopefully means they will in the future.

The price point can't be beat, stability seems "fine" and quality is going to be up to the user. Hopefully we'll hear more from other home studios about this gear.

Ryan, thanks for the tip on the drivers issue. I haven't had a problem yet but will write that down for reference.

Cheers!

[Ryan D]

Hey, it's awesome to see other people with the unit!

Thanks for the mention of the chaining - I completely forgot about that function! That'll be really cool to have if they release it in the future. I'll go ahead and edit the post right now. But yeah, it's a great unit, and it's good to see others can easily say the same about it. Thanks for the reply!

[brandondrury]

Please note, USB 2.0 is faster than Firewire.

I'm only repeating rumor, but I've heard it said many times that USB 2.0 has a faster instantaneous transfer rate, but Firewire has faster sustained transfer rate. With that said, debating the point is useless unless you are actually the one designing an audio interface. I don't think any company is going to actually create an USB 2.0 interface that exceeds the specs of USB 2.0.

Brandon

[unknwn]

I learned about the difference in throughput between USB2.0 and FireWire rests in the quality (quantity?) of error checking and correction is much higher (more thorough) in FireWire than USB2.0 . I would need to go back to my course notes to nail down the specifics, but, I used this snippet of info to help steer me towards the FireWire interface (FA66) that I chose.

I also remember that during my decision making about the purchase, I found that interfaces that were more portable did not specify USB2.0, only that they were USB. When I investigated further, I learned that a majority of devices marketed as USB were actually only running "Full speed" which is a big difference compared to the theoretical 2.0 specification.

Another determining factor for me was the fact that a device rated 2.0 WILL default to the slower "full speed" rate if another device in the chain ( mouse/ keyboard/ ect. ) happens to actually only perform at this slower speed.

In other words, if you are going to use these USB2.0 interfaces you need to jack it into a port that is not shared with other supposedly 2.0 spec. devices.
When I say "shared" ports I am referring to ports that are stacked on top of each other, and, any ports that exist in a hub. When you have ports that are integral to the motherboard that are physically above/below each other -or- plugged into a header using the same wire, they will default to a slower speed of whichever device isn't blazing along at the theoretical 2.0 specification.

I have a Belkin hub on one of my computers that is made with uncommon circuitry that judges and steers EACH port on the hub to overcome this little understood aspect of USB. The product is unlike 98% of of the hubs available. It was more expensive, and much harder to find, but impressive in it's abililty to overcome that drawback in USB.

[brandondrury]

While I'm not arguing with your post, I think it is a little "pre-emptive". The issues discussed in regard to "speed" are things I would deal with while troubleshooting. I don't consider them critical to understand or deal with until you have a problem with them.

I've heard tons of recordings done on PCI, USB 2.0, USB 1.1, and Firewire audio interfaces. It's 100% impossible to discern between them. The bigger issues ALWAYS come to mind first (poor monitoring, songwriting, poor room acoustics, poor performances, poor sounding instruments, etc). A person could spend their entire lifetime and not master any of these.

In other words, if you are going to use these USB2.0 interfaces you need to jack it into a port that is not shared with other supposedly 2.0 spec. devices.

I always factored this as a given.

[randyyy]

Hi all just got my us 1641 and can use all the help i can get.

[randyyy]

can someone explain this to me, will i need to do this upgrade?

The current drivers (1.01) will cause a latency problem to occur after recording large audio files for around 3-5 minutes. The problem is easily solved by changing the latency or any other parameter in the control panel. You'll have to do that between each recording. Or, you can use the ASIO4ALL drivers (which are free) from asio4all.com and not have to worry about it at all.

[BBJones]

Didn't have that problem. I've mostly been recording live jams (30minutes + at a time, 12 tracks+) and haven't noticed any problems.

In general it is just working as expected and I'm having no problems. Can't say much about quality yet but I'm sure its going to be all up to me

[randyyy]

are you using cubase, i have cubase sx and have a few questions, can you help me with that or are there any sites that offer cubase help