Echo MiaMIDI - 4 Input / 4 Output Sound Card with S/PDIF and MIDI for Mac and Windows

Comments about Echo MiaMIDI:

I have gone through a few different converters in the under-$700 range, including highly-rated ones like the Presonus "Fire" series, and every one of them was plagued with gremlins. Noise, glitches, popping sounds... The Firestudio Mobile won't even operate at the same time as a wireless internet driver (at least in my computer).

The Mia MIDI, finally, does what it is supposed to, with no freaking problems. I can't hear any noise, there are no extraneous artifacts, there's no problem running with any other components. It just works.

I especially needed it in order to take the Spdif output of preamps that have digi convertors, and get their signals into my workstation. Yes, other interfaces also have Spdif inputs, but again--the others I've tried couldn't even do that without glitches.

I'm sure you can pay $1K and get an interface that works as well as the Mia MIDI... but if you are on a budget, this is a no-brainer.

The only minor complaint I have is that the analog outputs are limited in their functionality--but I didn't buy this for its outputs.

Comments about Echo MiaMIDI:

I had a 10 year old version of this card, when it finally started to act up I bought the same for replacement. The sound quality is great and the way the inputs are setup it is really easy to live monitor once you figure out how you want to route the wiring. The console for the card is simple and straightforward. Have tried some of the USB interfaces but haven't found any that sound anywhere near as good, if I could get them to work properly in the first place. Nothing beats good hardwired inputs with flexibility to route wiring multiple ways. I would have to say the analog to digital conversion is great

Comments about Echo MiaMIDI:

I have been using this card for years for simple audio workstations running programs like Adobe Audition, etc. This card has good ASIO Driver support and you can have up to four of them stacked in a single machine if you need to expand later. The only reason that I rated it 4 stars rather than 5 is the fact that it only has a coaxial digitial interface rather than a full AES/EBU compliant 3 pin interface. They could have still used a 1/4" TRS jack for that purpose for space reasons, but the coaxial interface is off putting for some applications. This is the best value card out there on the market for simple stereo audio workstations where you need pro level +4 in/out capability, without an expensive proprietary dongle to break off... and still retaining a fully balanced interface. I don't have any experience with the MIDI capabilities of the card since I never use them, but i assume that they work fine since the rest of the card is so solid. I wish that you could link the cards together with an internal ribbon cable rather than an external dongle, but since I rarely have to do that its not a big deal. At [$] compared to $400+ for the Lynx One or an Audioscience card you can't loose here!