review :: Paul J. Furio
rating: 8/10
Cheaper than the MOTU 2408 series of interfaces, but lacking the ability to process 24 channels of audio on one PCI card, this box is a nice piece of work indeed for the ~$600 that it costs. The analog IO is all 1/4' balanced TRS, and SPDIF IO is provided for connecting to a DAT or other device. MIDI ports, almost thrown in as an afterthought, are easily accessable from the front panel, the only other front side feature besides a power LED.
Recordings made with this box are of very high quality, and while it lacks level meters on the rackmount box itself, the configuration software (which happily coexists with many multitrack audio programs) will display the input and output levels in a window, and allow you to tweak the settings in real time.
The one complaint about this box is the expandability, which is not really an issue, given the price. The software happily supports up to four PCI cards (one card connects to one rack mount box) for a total of 32 simultaneous input and output channels. MOTU lets you connect three rack mount boxes to one PCI card, but the MOTU lines cost on average 50% more than the Delta. MOTU also offers a wider variety of audio interfaces, including TDIF, AES/EBU, and the ADAT multitrack optical format, while Midiman offers only a single addon box to support the ADAT format. But if you're running a small home studio, you probably don't need all of those options, and you'd be best off putting the $300 you'd spend just for the opportunity to expand towards some other, more immediately useful gear.
