16 input channels, including mic, line, and instrument inputs
2 front-panel mic/instrument inputs into SuperChannels, each featuring a vacuum-tube preamplifier with trim control, 80 Hz high-pass filter, and analog compressor/limiter with VCA-based, dual-domain RMS and peak-detection
8 mic/line inputs, each with high-headroom Class A XMAX™ mic preamplifiers and trim controls
6 line inputs
48V phantom power for condenser microphones
6-segment, fast-acting, LED input and gain-reduction metering for SuperChannels
Headphone jack with level control
Power/Sync LED (indicates unit is synced to word clock)
Daisy-chain with multiple FireStudio Tubes or other FireStudio-family products to create a large, custom system
Studio One Artist™ digital audio workstation software included
Input/Output
2 FireWire 400 ports
2 combo XLR/¼” mic/instrument inputs into SuperChannels
8 XLR mic/line inputs
6 balanced ¼” analog line inputs
2 balanced ¼” main (L/R) line outputs
4 additional balanced ¼” analog line outputs
MIDI in/out
¼” headphone output
Digitalia
24-bit resolution and up to 96 kHz sampling rate
High-definition A/D/A converters (+114 dBu dynamic range)
JetPLL™ Jitter Elimination Technology (improved stereo imaging and clarity)
Zero-latency monitoring via 16x8 DSP matrix mixer/router
Mac®- and Windows®-compatible, including Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Windows 7
Supports ASIO, Core Audio, Direct Sound (Windows XP), Windows Audio Session API (Windows Vista and Windows 7)
Physical
1U 19” rack-mountable, rugged steel chassis
Sealed, detented, metal rotary controls
Internal power supply with standard IEC power cord
Software
Studio One Artist
PreSonus’ revolutionary new digital audio workstation, with unlimited track count and 4+ GB of 3rd-party resources.
Universal Control control-panel application for Mac OS X and Windows
The only reason I don't give a 10 is because the line level input are too low. The are designed to have a high ceiling so you can use a large variety of keyboards and preamps with it (adjusting the volume on the keyboard/preamp), but they went overboard with it. I have two korg keyboards and with the volume all the way up it is still too low. It should be fine with preamps though. I plugged my keyboards up to a $50 mixer and turned the volume up on the mixer and now the signal is definitely hot enough. Also, if you want line inputs with a hotter signal and don't need to use all 10 mic inputs, you can convert the mic inputs on the back to line with 1/4 inch to XLR converters (about 5.99 for one)
Overall, I am very satisfied and have noticed a HUGE difference in my recording quality switching from a tascam US-224 to this!
