Focusrite Saffire Pro 26 I/O

I use this both as a Firewire audio interface and as a stand-alone front-end for my Sonic Core (Creamware) Cards. Does both quite well. Haven't had it long enough to have a clear sense of audio quality, but my first impressions are very strong. Sounds better than the TC Konnekt 24D i was using, and is certainly more versatile. Time will tell whether it records as sweetly as the RME a-d-a unit i had before.

26 ins and 26 outs in total (8 analog, 16 adat, 2 S/PDIF times two). Pretty versatile IMO. Love the dual adat i/o's -- i use this in conjunction with Sonic Core (Creamware) cards; the more adat channels the merrier (subject to sonic core dsp load).

I bought this unit believing that the pre-amps are quite decent for the price range of this unit. Before i get rid of my Konnekt 24D, i'll do some A/B'ing. So far, though, no complaints.

I'm a synth guy btw; not like i've got mics on every channel.

Bus powered or PSU powered. Both ways seem to work equally well.

24-bit and up to 192 khz...good stuff, though i work mainly at 44.1 khz.

Control software seems nice, though i would appreciate audio level meters...I notice that at least some of the newer saffires have mini meters right on the hardware unit. All this has is an overload LED. Not a deal killer, obviously, but does leave something to be desired.

Haven't tried the VST plugins yet -- dam PACE authorization routine problems -- but i'm glad they're there, even though i don't expect to use them heavily.

Still early innings but it looks great so far. I saw the previous gripe about Focusrite tech support; don't know whether focusrite has improved its support, or if the previous guy was just unlucky, but so far my experience with focusrite tech support has been very positive. I have some other focusrite stuff as well, and the 2 or 3 email support requests i've made were answered promptly and satisfactorily.

It's a rack unit. The input clipping is indicated with LED's.
You should be using software eg Sonar to spot the input level.
I haven't used the in built DSP although they are there.
Metal case.

This is primarily a firewire unit to connect to your computer.
However you can supply it with info via an ADAT lightpipe.
I haven't used this as 8 channels is plenty for my purposes.

The preamps on the unit are very good as you would expect from
focusrite. You can select hi-impedance. Low cut filter.
There is SPDIF in.
I use the midi in from my keyboard to the midi out to my roland unit
this is a piece of cake to set up with sonar.
There are two headphone sockets out and the eight connectors at
the back are also independant outs. So you could have 1+2 to your
primary monitors and 3+4 to your secondary monitors.
You can use the upto 8 outs to mix for dolby is so desired.

Can be firewire powered from host or use the AC adaptor.
Provides phantom power for upto 8 condensor mikes.

Upto 192khz in stereo for recording.
I use 96khz at 24bit and it's rock solid.
Supports WDM but I use ASIO which has a lower latency.

Not crazy about the configuration utility with the little icons.
It looks like a computer game or something.

I have made some great recordings with this unit.
I'd recommend all focusrite equipment I've used - it's all high
quality with low levels of noise.

Check the website for info on this unit. As noted, 8 analog ins with 18 digital ins via spidif and 2 ADAT channels. I picked this up originally to use as an outboard preamp set with ADAT connectivity to a Yamaha O1v. The O1v is rack mounted and so is my preamp so the 8 XLR inputs across the back were a bonus negating the snake a few channels around the front issue I'd have with other units. For others wanting direct access to the front that may be a physical issue. To me it was on the "must have" list of features.

16 channels of ADAT I/O, firewire ports for connectivity and daisy chaining, 8 TRS in on the front and 8 TRS out on the back. SPIDIF and BNC for wordclock. Never used the midi since my purposes were all analog.

Optical ports can pass AC3, the sound of the unit when in standalone mode was excellent for live use, ADAT was solid, no complaints for standalone purposes. In my mind it did everything it probably should in standalone mode.
The issue I ran into was when someone asked me if I could track their live performance. My initial response was "Sure". I had 8 analog in feeding out by ADAT but that I should be able to record to a laptop by Firewire and I could pass another 8 tracks back via ADAT from the inputs on my O1v. For the small band that asked, it'd work perfectly. That is until I actually cabled it up by firewire. Suddenly the ADAT outs that routed the analog ins all became software outputs. I searched through the software and found nothing that would let me pass my analog signal to my O1v and record it at the same time. The best I could hope for was to use only 12 channels on the O1v, short by about 3 for my needs, and pass 8 channels back by ADAT to record. No longer could I expand my wonderful little digital mixer and record 16 tracks simultaneously, now I was royally screwed having already committed to recording this live event.

AC and bus powered, can provide phantom for a full 8 channels, individually selectable in sets of 4.

Up to 24/192Khz, ASIO driver and DirectSound support though DS is channel limited. Mixing interface is a little non-intuitive for monitoring needs. For the most part you get what they give you and the mix is only the one monitoring mix.

No software included other than some VST plugins I never bothered with. Standalone operation as noted was nice. Analog ins route out both sets of ADAT outputs.

If all you need is a standalone set of preamps this unit works well and the Focusrite sound is very good quality. If I never needed to record, I would have kept the unit. However, having called Focusrite support and getting a response that indicated I should look into their unit being introduced in a few months (indicating the 26io would never have the routing capability of older interfaces I've owned and used) I decided to hang it, fortunatly was within a time frame that I could return the unit and purchased the M-Audio FirePro 2626 instead. It's routing capabilities are everything I'd expected the Saffire to be.

This is a 1 space rack unit that connects to your computer via Firewire. Don't be fooled by the name, there's only 8 analogue ins and outs. The rest are digital I/O. It has 8 xlr ins on the rear panel, and 8 patch ins on the front panel. The patch ins override the xlr ins. Every input has a hi pass filter, a clip indicator, and a trim pot. I hate the trim pots because it's really hard to see where the gain is set. The dials have a tiny extrusion to indicate it's position, but the extrusion is the same colour as the dial making them almost invisible. Very annoying in low light studios/venues.
No onboard effects which is a good thing, although it comes packaged with some Focusrite vst plug ins. I haven't tried them.
The case is metal, but the trim pots are very cheap plastic. I wouldn't take it on the road.

Connects via firewire. Quite often the unit will lose firewire connectivity and need to be restarted. This means you also have to restart your host application. I've lost a lot of time with this. fyi, I have no other devices running on the same 1394 bus.
Another thing I hate about this unit is when it restarts it makes very loud clicks and pops. The Pro Tools Digi units automatically mute themselves when booting, but Focusrite didn't bother implementing this feature into the Saffire. Very disappointing.

The preamps actually sound quite nice for this price range. Very clean, but not sterile. Lots of digital I/O. ADAT, AES, spdif. The MIDI ports are useless. I'm running Nuendo and the Saffire MIDI drivers are emulated! The actual drivers don't work. I wonder why they even bothered with MIDI. I emailed tech support about this, but they were more useless than the MIDI implementation here. More about tech support later.

It can be bus powered, but more headroom is provided if you use the power adapter that comes with it. All analogue channels have phantom power.

I run at 24 bit/44.1K so it's fine for me. ADAT channels are halved when operating at higher sample rates.
Like I said before the MIDI drivers are emulated. I measured a 10ms latency and 4ms jitter. Totally useless.

I don't understand why there's no category for tech support here. Focusrite Tech Support gets 0/10. To get direct phone support you have to call England. That's fine if you're in Europe, but anywhere else you're paying for heavy long distance. Email support is abysmal. I'm lucky if I get a response, and after initial contact I am forgotten. Absolutely brutal tech support. That's a deal breaker for me. I will never deal with Focusrite again. If it were stolen I wouldn't even consider replacing it. I would buy a MOTU, or even move up to an Apogee.
If you've been considering Focusrite for your I/O my advice is to look elsewhere.