Echo AudioFire4 FireWire Audio Interface

Comments about Echo AudioFire4 FireWire Audio Interface:

Awesome quality, and very simple to use. I'd highly recommend this unit as an interface. I use it to mic my guitar amp, or plug my guitar direct into the computer (via line 6).

Comments about Echo AudioFire4 FireWire Audio Interface:

first let me say that this product /really/ deserves 5 stars, but I couldn't justify that due to the lack of a 9-pin to 6-pin FW cable for my MacBook Pro. the 6-pin to 6-pin provided is a very nice, low gauge (thick) cable, however.
as small as the unit is, it seems very solid, the non-stick feet are functional but not obnoxiously large, the rotary knobs have a good feel to them with no snaps, crackles, or pops (yet).
initial reaction of the pre's - they sound fantastic! (this unit is replacing/enhancing an M-Audio Delta 1010LT on a PC)
the configuration program also has a nice layout, seems quite similar across Mac and PC, and I like the idea of all changes made via the software being flashed to the device on exit, which allows for stand-alone use.

Comments about Echo AudioFire4 FireWire Audio Interface:

Make sure you research this and other firewire interfaces for compatibility with your Pc. I had IRQ conflicts with mine which caused severe crackling when recording This could only be rectified with buying a firewire pci card. Check Echo's website for recommendations.

Comments about Echo AudioFire4 FireWire Audio Interface:

I purchased this product for the purpose of recording using two Cascade M39 microphones. Audio output quality was fine, but the preamps had too little gain for these microphones, causing hiss to enter recordings due to the trim of the Preamps being all the way up.

Comments about Echo AudioFire4 FireWire Audio Interface:

when i opened this, .. shiny!! and light weight.

both channel works fine with mic cable and 1/4inch cable.
volume control is really handy when u recording.
midi input works great.
this is really faultless!
GREAT gear!! im satisfied!

Comments about Echo AudioFire4 FireWire Audio Interface:

I use on a Xp Phenom 9850 machine recording with Sonar 8.5. Use midi to record virtual synths, Use ASIO with 10ms round trip and can lay down 3-4 virtual synths before I need to freeze the tracks. This is fast enough for natural playing of Piano and more. But the best is the sound, compaired to the layla 24/96 smoother and warmer. Compairable to E-MU usb404. At this Price point it sound great, looks great, and is solid.

Comments about Echo AudioFire4 FireWire Audio Interface:

I bought the Audiofire 4 to replace the MAudio fast-track pro that I purchased that claimed 24/96 but couldn't do so full duplex. This AudioFire 4 is in fact a true full duplex device (24/96) with excellent drivers for my iMac with latest Snow Leopard version to date. I have yet to try the midi and SPDIF but they are not as important as having 2 quality outputs & inputs. Sound quality is quite good for my ears and needs. The software control application can be a little difficult to navigate, and the overall output is only adjustable via software, but those are small details that I can overlook for quality and dependability. The housing is small and robust, good for the road. Overall, I'd recommend this to the discriminating audiophiles out there.

Comments about Echo AudioFire4 FireWire Audio Interface:

I bought this to add more IO options and midi ports. Setup in Win7 was straightforward using the Echo drivers. My firewire port is a 5-yr old PCI interface with an NEC chipset, no problems. Latency is low, 128 samples (2.9 ms) is certainly adequate on my system (i7 CPU using 4 processors for audio editing, 4GB RAM, H55M-S2V MB). The mixer GUI is flexible and allows switching IO and routing on the fly. An improvement would be a full size headphone plug, and the ability to assign the phones to monitor arbitrary channels - although these are minor inconveniences.

Comments about Echo AudioFire4 FireWire Audio Interface:

The quality of the recordings that I am getting with this FireWire device are INFINITELY better than I was getting with my previous setup. I could not be happier with it.

Comments about Echo AudioFire4 FireWire Audio Interface:

Great sound and simple to use. Purchased based on recommendation from [@] user.

Comments about Echo AudioFire4 FireWire Audio Interface:

Bought this for mobile laptop-based recording and live performance.

FireWire bus power is a great feature. 2 XLR inputs with phantom power. Nice stable drivers.

Compact, lightweight but not dinky, well-made but not over engineered.

Does pretty much what you expect it to do. Sound quality on preamps is good, but nothing to write home about. A great solution for portability due to bus power and compact size. No extra junk that it doesnt need, good inputs and outputs.

Comments about Echo AudioFire4 FireWire Audio Interface:

It has very low latency.
you can download the latest firmware easily.
The best thing is there are two stero input, master piano, and midi.
Also compatibility with SONAR8 and Cubase5 is perfect, but i personally SONAR8 is better for this audiofire4.
the real big deal is low latency.
if you guys know the importance of latency, i dont need to say more.

Comments about Echo AudioFire4 FireWire Audio Interface:

Overall a great unit. Sound is definitely a step up from many of the cheaper units out there. I got it for it's low noise, quality preamps, good converters and the fact that I could use it in Linux or OSX. The only other firewire unit I would consider is RME.

Beware that getting it to work well in OSX, you need to make sure that you use it's clock source, not the application's (in Audio MIDI setup). Also, if you're using Logic Pro to record, make sure I/O Safety Buffer IS NOT checked, or you'll get overload messages all the time.

Comments about Echo AudioFire4 FireWire Audio Interface:

Using a mac: you plug it in, it works. Unlike the m-audio thing I had before it doesn't crash the machine. The only thing I have against it is that the headphone output is *really* loud.

Build quality is excellent and, strangely, the box looks a lot better in real life than it does on any of Echo's marketing bumf - it fits very nicely next to a modern mac.

Comments about Echo AudioFire4 FireWire Audio Interface:

I upgraded to the Audiofire 4 three months ago from an M-Audio Ozone. The difference is night and day. My only regret is that I didn't upgrade earlier.

I was off to a rocky start getting the drivers working on XP, but once I did I had excellent, squeaky clean sound and good routing options. The chassis is beautiful brushed metal and is a great size: small but sturdy. The face of the unit looked somewhat cheap online but in person is classy. The MIDI in and out are handy and are designated for my Micro Modular's "PC" ports. Bus power is nice and means one less cable to deal with.

The outputs are hot, especially the headphone output - to the point that you need to be careful! They are very clean and mostly noiseless. I have them plugged into a comparitively noisy Mackie VLZ1202, so when I want to relax and enjoy some music I often bypass it and plug my headphones directly into the Audiofire. I thought having 2 inputs on the front would be annoying and inconsistent for patchbay use, but I actually really like having a quick direct patch option. Impedance detection works well and it's as easy to plug in a microphone as a line level signal.

I just measured the latency (input to output) and it ranges from 6.7ms to 10.3ms, depending on the sampling rate, though I haven't used it much at 88k or 96k so it could be higher for those. This is a huge improvement for me. With soft synths this number is even lower, making them feel much more expressive.

The driver annoyingly unloads sometimes when I nudge the cable but this seems to be the fault of my firewire interface and is solved by power cycling. I sometimes get crackling when scrolling in a web browser but adjusting latency, which is very easy, usually solves this. The software mixer is OK - great routing and intuitive but cheesy-looking interface, and somewhat coarse level adjustment. Also the driver that shipped with it seemed to be outdated which may have been a cause of my initial frustration.

The last frustration was using the S/PDIF with my MPC. Going from the Audiofire to the MPC works fine at 44kHz or 48kHz, but the Audiofire only seems to properly interface with the MPC's outputs at 48kHz - at any other rate is horrible crackling. But this could also be the MPC's fault (I don't have any other S/PDIF hardware to check) and I'm using cheap, non-S/PDIF cables anyway.

Overall it's a great interface, and an excellent value. I am very pleased. I did my research before buying but take my opinion with a grain of salt because it's only my second interface. The only thing it leaves me wanting is more inputs and outputs. When I upgrade I expect to go straight for the Audiofire 8.

Comments about Echo AudioFire4 FireWire Audio Interface:

After fighting with M-audio, Prosonus etc. under XP and finding out neither had solid Windows 7 support, spent the money to get Echo. Great decision - you do get what you pay for. Great construction, solid features, perfect drivers and stellar performance. Highly recommended