"Great, feature-packed, low-cost multi-track i/o."

This reviewer purchased this item from Same Day Music.

Feature:
The combination of software mixer and hardware knobs is truly the best feature, for my personal uses. I'm using this for a solo club act, and having a master volume knob as well as 2 separate headphone jacks with volume pots (that are quite usable as line-level sends) gives me instant access to my mains and monitor sends, without having to get into the software quickly. Also, the front 4 combo XLR-TRS jacks have "REAR" switches that instantly throw the signal to the first 4 rear TRS jacks, which is also a nice feature. One complaint: the rear-panel jacks are laid out nicely, but their silk-screened labels are a bit of challenge to read in low (nightclub) light.

Quality:
Overall quality is great - very soid construction. I only gave a 9 because the unit is just a smidge larger than one rack space with the feet, so it will not fit into a 1-rack space on a rack tray. You can get it into 1 space if you attach it directly onto the lower device. This would be remidied easily if the feet were removeable - the rubber part of the feet does come off, but there is a plastic ring around the base that is not removable without doing surgery to the case.

Value:
Great value for the price, no complaints.

Desirability:
Nice-looking, for what that's worth.

Sound:
The sound is certainly top-notch for this price range. These are not $1000 converters, so I wasn't expecting as much. But the pre-amps are smooth and clean, and the overall output sound is equally pristine for this price range.

Ease of Use:
Product was easy to use, essentially plug and play in both Vista and WinXP Pro. Drivers were easy to find for both OS's. One minor con: the unit is EXTREMELY susceptible to static electricity zaps. I rehearse in a basement that is a challenge to keep sufficiently humidified, and when the FTU gets zapped, it is useless without a reboot. 10-15 seconds of off time and it's back, but sometimes that causes me to have to reboot the DAW as well.

Support:
No issues to deal with yet. But M-Audio usually has good tech support.

Overall:
I believe this unit will serve me quite well, both for live performance and as a mobile multi-track interface (I use Nuendo for both).