Poll: which of these 4 interfaces would you choose?

[JDW3]

I've been reading reviews on interfaces for 3 hours. OMG

The problem is, many are 5 years old! I think I've got it narrowed down. I am wanting to use my Garageband in my iMac. It's an OS X 10.5.8.

E-MU 1616M

Echo AudioFire 4

M-Audio Fast Track Ultra

Apogee Duet

The M-Audio is USB. I have read reviews saying USB is as good as firewire these days. Is this true? Is firewire truly necessary?


I'm looking at the Apogee pretty hard; it appears to have been made for a Mac. It is also very expensive.


I'd just like some honest opinions before I go shopping. It's really hard to believe a lot of these reviews.

 

[JUKE179r]

Well... I can definitely say that the E-MU is out of the question because the firmware is supported only for Windoze.
I got to mess around with the Duet at the Apple store. It's nice but not really for me (DJing & live music sets) especially the price.
I like M-Audio equipment but I'm a FireWire (FW) type of guy. For the money you would spend on the Fast Track Ultra (which is nice), IMO I'd go for the ProFire610. I don't know what all you are going to connect to the interface for Garageband, but the 610 has plenty of inputs, midi and s/pdif.

M-AUDIO - ProFire 610 - High-Definition 6-in/10-out FireWire Audio Interface with Octane Preamp Technology

You asked about FW... it's really up to you what you want. I've used other USB interfaces and they were a bit glitchy and I had problems with latency with too many inputs. I never had problem when using FW. If I could find a 64GB FW memory stick, I would buy it!

 

[Chud]

Make sure you look at Presonus and Focusrite gear as well. They've both got good options at decent prices. And I would venture to say that if you are only going to be moving a few tracks around, USB 2.0 would be ok. If you are recording more than one track at a time, and eventually running multiple tracks I would just go for the extra bandwidth and go firewire. With things like that, you never notice it until you need it most.

 

[iMac13]

I have the Apogee Duet.
It is pretty pricey considering you will still need a good set of monitor speakers to go with it. I use my Duet through a set of KRK Rokit 8 speakers.
The Duet once working on a mac, works flawlessly.
Getting it initially setup working is a bit of a head scratcher as the manual isn't very helpful.
The Apogee is very customizable through it's software.
I use mine with Logic Pro 9 and Logic recognizes it automatically.

I haven't had experience with the other audio interfaces though.

But what I can tell you about the Duet is, although the initial pricetag may seem high, you will not be disappointed with it.
I've been using mine for the last 2 years.

 

[JDW3]

I have the Apogee Duet.
It is pretty pricey considering you will still need a good set of monitor speakers to go with it. I use my Duet through a set of KRK Rokit 8 speakers.
The Duet once working on a mac, works flawlessly.
Getting it initially setup working is a bit of a head scratcher as the manual isn't very helpful.
The Apogee is very customizable through it's software.
I use mine with Logic Pro 9 and Logic recognizes it automatically.

I haven't had experience with the other audio interfaces though.

But what I can tell you about the Duet is, although the initial pricetag may seem high, you will not be disappointed with it.
I've been using mine for the last 2 years.

I have a set of self powered monitors. Not the best, but usable.

How do you hook the monitors up? Do they go to the headphone out of the iMac monitor of to the Duet? I was wondering this as I was going to buy everything I "thought" I needed. Do I need more adapters with the Duet? My powered monitors have both XLR and 1/4 inch inputs.

 

[Chud]

Whatever interface device you choose is going to be handling all of the audio, so it will have main/monitor outs for your monitors. Most are going to be 1/4" outs, but some of the higher end units use XLR outs.