Surprisingly good ine verything but build quality.

When iw as big into Cubase SX I tried this guy and was blown away by how decent the Yamaha mic preamps are for this price point and its Cubase integration was excellent. I ahd to stop using it because the firewire jack stopped making contact making it worthless. Warranty was up, the PCB looked ahrd to sodler on, I stopped using Cubase in favor of FL Studio or Protools only and firewire is a dead format anyway so I went back to relying on my Emu stereo card and outboard preamps and DIs. I miss having this though if only because I could sue it with my laptop for location recordings or to turn my HP into a synth module via the MIDI port for performance or analog sequencing, I don't actually have a laptop MIDI solution I like right now, the MIDI on the Steinburg is solid as a rock. Maybe I'll but another one and treat the firewire connection more gingerly. I wouldn't mid having a couple of these for location work.

This was my only experiment with a firewire interface and one of only 2 non PCI card solutions I've tried and I gotta say I much prefer the dinosaur method.... though I am seriously debating going thunderbolt. Don't even get me started on multitracking over USB, total shit. USB can handle one track at a time, firewire definitely handled 8 on a fast system but it took real dialing in to avoid glitches compared with a PCI solution and the jack, which always seemed finicky to me compared to USB, turned out to be the achiles heel. All in all this was an effective firewire solution that's expandable but don't buy one even though they are probably cheap now. In fact, I still gotta recommend classic, old school PCI based solutions to conversion for your home/project studio -- as long as you avoid fly by night companies (made that mistake once) you won't have driver issues and they have NO other drawbacks other than being glued to the one system you bolted them into. If you must be able to switch around computers look at the new thunderbolt standard, its the coming thing.

The ultimate Cubase integration for seamless recording and production

MR816 CSX and MR816 X are, simply put, the ideal hardware for any Cubase owner who needs to record vocals, instruments, keyboards, percussion or any other audio source. The Advanced Integration between MR816 and Cubase offers a unique and powerful production solution that fully mirrors Cubase functionality, adds DSP power for mixing, allows on-the-fly rerouting of input signals via Quick Connect, full integration into the Cubase user interface and much more.

Any musician or producer already using Cubase and looking to add a recording interface need look no further. The MR816 CSX and MR816 X are ideal for recording bands in rehearsal rooms or live gigs with a laptop, or building up a dedicated project studio or recording space. Full integration into the Cubase user interface means that operating the MR816 requires very little or no learning — all functions and features are in the places any Cubase owner expects to find them. The intelligent plug and play handling means that Cubase automatically detects any attached MR816 hardware. And because the DSP FX run as VST3 plug-ins, these excellent plug-ins are available during mixing in Cubase, often replacing the need to purchase an additional DSP card.

Excellent sound, great stacking options and a smooth, fast workflow are among the top priorities for studios using MR816 and Cubase as recording and production solution for their business. Connections required for studios like Wordclock, S/PDIF and ADAT are onboard, with the hardware inserts offering an ideal way of integrating boutique hardware units in the software realm. Features like Quick Connect allow on-the-fly rerouting by simply pushing a button on the MR816 front panel. Eight channel outputs offer full support for surround productions up to 7.1, ideally complemented by Steinberg’s fully multi-channel architecture and the Control Room features in both Cubase and Nuendo.

Great, but use it as a ADAT slave now

It was a joy to work with this soundcard, because of it's sound quality and the advanced integration with Cubase (my daw of choice). I also really dig the Yamaha's D–Pre discrete Class–A mic preamps in this unit. But since i banned firewire from my studio, i now hooked it up to my UAD Apollo twin duo via ADAT lightpipe to gain some additional inputs. This baby will stay in my rack until it dies and then it will be replaced with an Audient ASP880.