E-MU 1616M

While Creative Labs continues to sell the E-MU 1616M and other E-MU products, apparently they've decided that customer support is no longer necessary. Like many, I bought this unit because of the converters and the feature set. But I never would have bought the unit if I'd known how horrible and useless Creative/E-MU's customer/technical support is. I've been trying to replace the non-functioning MIDI breakout cable for a year, with absolutely nothing to show for it. I get the occasional e-mail response, sent overnight from "far away" by a made-up person called "Arman," but that's it. So I've had to give up. I'll buy other boxes for MIDI, and when this thing craps out I will never ever buy another piece of E-MU gear.

Have used the EMU 1616m in the last year. The hardware setup is easy. The internal mixer concept is very hard to understand and too complex. The included effects are very budget and sound bad. The manual is not very detailed.

For the price you theoretically get an amazing amount of features. Especially the ADAT IO was very sexy for me. However, my 1616m broke three, yes 3 times due to ESD discharge. Every time, one of the outputs just dropped by a couple of dB or refused completely to work. So keep in mind amazing features but zero reliability.

As mentioned the onboard EFX are fairly crappy, the overall A/D D/A quality is acceptable.

Poor, poor, poor. I had the thing for three times blowing up on me in a home studio setup. The EMU service is nice though, but it just hurts not to be able to make any music. Therefore, I cannot recommend this card at all. I ultimately invested now in an RME product.

Customer support tries to do what they can, fair enough.

Given the poor reliability I can only say poor.

1616M driver ver:1.82
Preset useable
Easily edited thru patchMix. Which is fantastic.. took a while to get use to, but logical if you have used a mixing desk
Manual is excellent.. well worth a read

The best soundcard for the price (PCMCIA). I use an adaptor for the PC, works great. SOunds identical to my mates 1820M.
Everything that I need is on it. I tried loads of soundcard before choosing this one. Sound on Sound recommended. I have an Echo Mia also and it definitely has better sound that it. Just like SOS said

DSP sounds are alright, not the best but easy to use and I do even with my other outboard gear. Fantastic sound quality. Only problem is that the effects only work in 41 or 48 Khz. So only an 8.

Hasnt broke yet. I brought a long EDI cable because 1m wasnt long enough for me. I dont gig anymore, but would probably trust it?? Build quality of the PCMCIA card is a bit filmsy, so be careful.

The best. I lost my midi cable and those ladies and gentlemen at EMU are the coolest and most helpful people on earth, bar none.

Great sound.
Very flexible. Loads of inputs and outputs. Sold my Joe meek cause the pres are excellent. No clock though (1820M has. No probs cause I wouldnt use on anyhow. Would like a monitor volume control like the Edirol but I use the headphone to control it so I dont use a mixer. I use the 1616m with Mackie HR624, blows me away all the time. If you are looking for a portable soundcard for Windows and cant afford a MOTU (828) then go for this. Its incredible. Fantastic support and value. I know I tried everything before I brought this.