Audio Interfaces

Native Instruments' new hardware offering has a few unusual features that may just find it a niche in the crowded audio interface market.

Digidesign have shrunk the M Box to give us the most compact and affordable Pro Tools interface ever. How good is it?

Emu's first USB 2.0 interface, and their first to offer Mac OS X compatibility, dispenses with DSP effects and complex software front-ends, majoring instead on hands-on controls and practical studio features. Have they hit on a winning formula?

Synthesizer, USB audio interface, MIDI controller — Novation's Xiosynth does it all, and at a very reasonable price...

The guitar modelling revolution continues apace with M-Audio's latest interface.

Focusrite take their Firewire interface range to a new level with the competitively priced Saffire Pro 26 I/O.

The new M Box 2 Pro is the first portable Pro Tools interface that connects via Firewire rather than USB. As a result, users get more I/O, a phono preamp and word clock support among other bonuses.

Lexicon's latest addition to their alphabetically inspired soundcard range is friendly to both your desktop space and your wallet .

Is an all-in-one mixer, MIDI controller and audio interface the perfect solution for digital DJs and live laptop artists?

With their latest Firewire interface, Presonus promise high audio quality at an affordable price, thanks to the use of software controls instead of physical knobs.

Focusrite's Saffire already offered an awful lot of Firewire interface for your money, but the new LE version could just be even more of a bargain.

A compact analogue mixer that also acts as a stereo USB audio interface.

With even the cheapest soundcards now offering 24-bit, 192kHz recording, is it still worth investing in high-end converters? Lynx certainly think so...

Most computer audio interfaces don't offer the RIAA equalisation required to attach a turntable directly, but ART's neat problem-solver is designed to do just that.

Soundscape have always been renowned for the stability of their DSP-based PC recording systems. Their latest development is a unique new way of integrating native CPU power into the Soundscape environment.

It may look like just another mixer, but this new entry-level model from Alesis also packs in a hefty 18-input, stereo-output Firewire audio interface. Too good to be true?

Line 6's latest products are USB boxes that turn your computer into a low-latency amp-modelling system.

Mackie's new 10-in, 10-out breakout box includes an internal DSP mixer, MIDI connectivity, and four of their high-spec Onyx preamps.

M Audio have packaged a fully featured control surface with motorised faders, an 18-input Firewire interface and eight mic preamps in one box — at a very competitive price.

If you fancy Tascam's FW series of Firewire interfaces but don't need their control-surface features, the new FW1804 might be just what you are looking for.

Firewire and USB 2 interfaces have their advantages, but if you need serious channel counts at high sample rates, the PCI card still rules, and ESI's heavyweight recording system caters for a huge range of input and output formats at up to 192kHz.