Motu 8pre Vs. Presonus Firepod

[TheCaptain'sBoot]

Hello,

Anyone out there have experience with the Motu 8pre or the Presonus
Firepod. I'm in the market for more i/o and I was wondering if anyone
had some input.

[TheCaptain'sBoot]

Also I should mention that I monitor digitally through my Central
Station via s/pdif. The Central Station also has an optical input.
Would the ADAT/Toslink be better or worse than the s/pdif?

[Mike Rivers]

On Apr 6, 2:52 pm, "TheCaptain'sBoot" >
wrote:
> Also I should mention that I monitor digitally through my Central
> Station via s/pdif. The Central Station also has an optical input.
> Would the ADAT/Toslink be better or worse than the s/pdif?

Depends. Does either of those preamps have a built-in mixer with an S/
PDIF output? The Central Station digital inputs are stereo, not multi-
channel.

[TheCaptain'sBoot]

On Apr 6, 3:31 pm, "Mike Rivers" > wrote:
> On Apr 6, 2:52 pm, "TheCaptain'sBoot" >
> wrote:
>
> > Also I should mention that I monitor digitally through my Central
> > Station via s/pdif. The Central Station also has an optical input.
> > Would the ADAT/Toslink be better or worse than the s/pdif?
>
> Depends. Does either of those preamps have a built-in mixer with an S/
> PDIF output? The Central Station digital inputs are stereo, not multi-
> channel.


Hey Mike...
I monitor my stereo out with s/pdif. Sorry for the confusion

[Mike Rivers]

On Apr 6, 4:27 pm, "TheCaptain'sBoot" >
wrote:

> I monitor my stereo out with s/pdif. Sorry for the confusion

I know that the Firepod has a stereo mixer for headphone monitoring,
as well as a S/PDIF input and output, so it may be possible to route
that monitor mix to the S/PDIF output. But since you're ultimately
converting what went into that S/PDIF input on the Central Station to
analog so you can monitor on your speakers, I see no benefit to
converting the Firepod's stereo mix to digital and then converting it
back to analog in the Central Station. The only possible benefit is if
you had a ground loop problem with an analog connection that you
didn't have using an optical digital connection.

[Scott Fraser]

> Also I should mention that I monitor digitally through my Central
> Station via s/pdif. The Central Station also has an optical input.
> Would the ADAT/Toslink be better or worse than the s/pdif?>>

Toslink IS Spdif. Both these carry the same signal. One is optical,
the other is electrical, but the bitstream is the same. So, your
results should be exactly the same with either. However, Toslink is
considered by many to be a less robust physical format.

Scott Fraser

[WJ]

"TheCaptain'sBoot" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> Hello,
>
> Anyone out there have experience with the Motu 8pre or the Presonus
> Firepod. I'm in the market for more i/o and I was wondering if anyone
> had some input.
>

I was looking at the same options, and tried to find some hard data on the
Motu unit. They don't post their manuals online, and ignored my e-mailed
questions. The sales guy at Swee****er that I was dealing with had no
better luck. I basically couldn't get any useful info about the Motu
products, so I went with the Firepods, and have had no complaints. Well,
just one. The documentation says that you can daisy-chain up to 3 units
together and use all three on your computer at once. This may be
theoretically true, but when I tried it brought my 1.7Ghz Dell with 2GB of
RAM to it's knees. And that was just hooking them up; not actually trying
to do anything. I may not have been holding my mouth right or something,
but if you're going to do something like that, better find a real hotrod
computer.

Cheers,
Walt

[ChristopheRonald]

i have a decent computer and can run 2 firepods pretty easy.

p4. 3.0 dual core 64 bit. windows xp. 1 gig ram. 250 gig hd. no
probs. cubase or ableton.

firepods are nice. i likey.

[hank alrich]

WJ wrote:

> "TheCaptain'sBoot" wrote...
> > Hello,
> >
> > Anyone out there have experience with the Motu 8pre or the Presonus
> > Firepod. I'm in the market for more i/o and I was wondering if anyone
> > had some input.
> >
>
> I was looking at the same options, and tried to find some hard data on the
> Motu unit. They don't post their manuals online, and ignored my e-mailed
> questions. The sales guy at Swee****er that I was dealing with had no
> better luck. I basically couldn't get any useful info about the Motu
> products, so I went with the Firepods, and have had no complaints. Well,
> just one. The documentation says that you can daisy-chain up to 3 units
> together and use all three on your computer at once. This may be
> theoretically true, but when I tried it brought my 1.7Ghz Dell with 2GB of
> RAM to it's knees. And that was just hooking them up; not actually trying
> to do anything. I may not have been holding my mouth right or something,
> but if you're going to do something like that, better find a real hotrod
> computer.

While I'm not a Windows person, seems to me something else is awry in
the overall configuration. I'd think your machine should be able to
handle 24 inputs worth of action, let alone just having the three
devices connected to it.

--
ha
Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam

[WJ]

>
> While I'm not a Windows person, seems to me something else is awry in
> the overall configuration. I'd think your machine should be able to
> handle 24 inputs worth of action, let alone just having the three
> devices connected to it.
>
> --
> ha
> Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam

That's entirely possible. I hadn't planned on actually operating the
Firepods that way, so I didn't try all that hard. I know that the drivers
for my Firebox (2 channel version of the Firepods) and the drivers for my
M-audio Transit don't really like each other, and that system is much
happier if I unload one set when using the other.

Cheers,
Walt

[denovo]

I have a FirePod and have a MOTU 2408 Mk II and have used a 828 MkII.
No experience with the 8pre. But looking at the feature set, I can
see this device is supposed to be a head on competitor to the Firepod.

I think Presonus and MOTU build good stuff. However the wild cards
here are your platform and your DAW, MOTU stuff tends to play better
with Mac based systems or DAWs. I know I had a tough time initially
with the Firepod and Digital Performer (my default DAW). But once I
figured out the Firepod's idiosyncracies, I've really enjoyed having
the 8 mic pres. I do think the converters on the 2408 Mk II and 828
Mk II are definitely better. But I prefer the pres on the Firepod,
though just slightly over the MOTU pres.

I am considering actually trading in the Pod for the 828 Mk II. Since
I rarely need more than 4 pres and the relative stability of DP with
MOTU hardware is much more favorable to me. But YMMV.

I hear the Firepod is stable with Windows machines and Nuendo or
Cubase. You can also find Firepods used in the $400 pricepoint on
Ebay or Craigs.

Charles