Presonus Firebox Reviews?, Anyone actually use this yet? Options

[ArchivalAudio]

wondering if anyone has actually used the new PreSonus FireBox? Its been available in Europe for a month now... and just became available here in the US. I am wondering if any has tried this unit out... I am strongly considering gettting one. I would like to hear any reviews of this new interface.

any opinions?
power consumption in the feild? etc.

thanx
-- Ian

[bbmozee]

At long last, the missing link I've found. Ever since OS X came out my search for the promised land of elegant, rock-solid, inspired music creation on the Mac took me on many adventures (and plenty of mis-adventures!). Last night that musical holy grail came into view. My eMac G4 1.25GHz/Superdrive/80GB with external LaCie PORSCHE Firewire HD, Panther 10.3.8, Logic Pro 7, and now the new and "hottest" piece of the puzzle--a Prosonus FIREBOX, made beautiful music together. Hot, sweet and sexy--a dream come true. The FIREBOX has me totally stoked!

Here's the story so far. Been using the MBox and PT LE (and will continue to do so with my TiBook/667) but I have a new eMac now with the greatest music production program ever--Logic Pro 7--and need at least four simultaneous recording inputs to flesh out my original jazz compositions. I first tried the M-Audio FW410 but gave up on the flaky drivers, cheesy controls and uneven sound. Took it back and settled for a Tascam US-122. After updating to the 3.2.3 OS X driver all was stable but I was back to only 2 channel recording and the headphone amp was really weak (the direct monitoring and insert capability are nice and I'll be keeping it for my music students to use). I was twisting in the wind. Do I go way overkill with the MOTU 828 or Traveler, the Edirol FA1010 or Prosonus FirePod? Ouch! Don't need all that much and want to spend much less. Can't I just KISS? Thanks to the FIREBOX the final answer is YES!

Got mine yesterday at Guitar Center in Buffalo for 399. Brought it home and just to be sure downloaded the latest software for it from the Prosonus Web site. It appears to be the same as on the included CD (ver. 1). BTW, the box contained the printed manual, AC adapter, MIDI/SPDIF and Firewire cables. Plugged everything in, installed the software, repaired permissions, restarted. FIREBOX recognized! Just had to set up Sound control panel and Audio/MIDI prefs to lock things together (cool blue light on FIREBOX shows that all is groovin'). Launched Logic Pro 7, changed audio interface default to the FIREBOX and got working! It just sounded beautiful.

Thankyou Prosonus, Panther and Logic for making it all happen. At long last, it's time to play!