Could not stop feelings of deja vu welling up as I read Barry Watsons' report. I remember a similarly upbeat review in 2005 of the Behringer BCA2000 and bought one on the strength. What a monumental disaster THAT interface was! Not I hasten to add from any analogue performance lack but from the dire drivers. The units also proved to be very unreliable (so no change there then!).

I would also like to have been in on the "market research" as I had been onto Akai for over 12 months asking for more details such as a proper specification, a user handbook and where the unit had been reviewed. No details were ever sent me. I have just gone to akaipro.com and still there is no specification or user handbook worth the few kbytes it takes to send them.

A spare H/P out I could live without Barry but I think they have missed a serious trick in no S/PDIF. Surely so equipped it would have been possible to sync multiple units as one can with M-A PCI cards? But then CAN you run another EIE from the hub? Maybe it would tell us in the "book"?

Dave.

I did raise an eyebrow at the rather glowing review of this Akai product myself.

If its drivers are anything like Akai's MPC4000 USB drivers I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.

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~~~ A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen as you are tossed with! www.feline1.co.uk ~~~

Given Alesis and Akai share the same corporate umbrella, I imagine Old MacDonald's box shares the same (or derived) drivers as the Alesis iO|26. I have one of those and it's fine, very excellent in fact.

If I didn't have the iO|26, I'd be grabbing an Old MacDonald's box - it looks bloody fab and would sit atop my Dotcom modular looking suitably 'laboratory'!

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Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

I read Barry Watson's report about the Akai EIE Pro and went straight out to buy one.

I have thus far been thrilled with my purchase.

I think everyone should have one.

Quote BdV:

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I read Barry Watson's report about the Akai EIE Pro and went straight out to buy one.

I have thus far been thrilled with my purchase.

I think everyone should have one.

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I very nearly did! It was only the flakeyness of Akai that prevented my buying one.
After the initial show launch hoo-ha I tried desperately for months and months to get some decent specifications out of Akai, all I could ever find was a very slim "quick user gude". There is now a "handbook" but the English section only amounts to 4 pages. I then came upon the NI Komplete Audio 6 and am more than happy with that. FYI that manual runs to 55 and a bit pages of English!

One thing I would love to know about the EIE. It is a usb 2.0 hub? So, can you plug another EIE in and run 8 tracks? I seem to remember that usb devices CAN be daisychained but the practice seems to have ceased. If Akai have not made this possible I think they have missed a very good trick and one that would to some extent make up for the lack of S/PDIF, which was a daft omission IMHO.

Dave.