It's a nice setup, decent but not great pres and very pricey for what you get.

This is the year that the market will change dramatically for this type of component. Focusrite and Digi have put the Mbox out and now Focusrite is bringing out piece to compete with the Presonus digimax. A firewire component from them seems inevitable.

A Magma is still the way to go for me, can't beat it yet.

thanks for the reply Kirk but forgive my ignorance - Magma ?? what's that??

Thats the expansion chassis for PCI cards brand name - Magma.

http://www.magma.com/index2.html

(but doesn't address your question really....)

I beg to differ. I have the Metric Halo 2882+Dsp. I think the pres are quite good. They're not Millennia's or Neves. We have three MIO boxes. I think they are awesome for the money. For road work they're more than adequate. If needed I supplement the pres with Millennia, Neve, UA2-610, Avalon, what have you. The converters are very good. I think it sounds wonderful.

Thanks for the replys!

Henry - you have an MIO with the DSP - what does the DSP do ?? Whay should I pay the extra cash?? - Thanks - Rich :w:

First off this is a great sounding, professionally built piece of equipment. It's built like a tank for use in the field. Secondly the guys at Metric Halo are phenomenal in terms of their support. Second to none and I've been around a while. This is crucial. They are always there and ready to pull up their sleeves to solve a problem, whether it directly relates to their box/software or not!

This is the only box that is fully firewire bus powerable. I don't know whether this is important to you or not but you can take this out with an iBook, throw up 8 mics, with very good mic pres, powered completely from your iBook (or other laptops) battery.

Also the Adat lightpipe will be multiplexed which means that you'll have an additional 8 tracks via Adat at 24/48k or an additional 4 at 24/96k.

Unfortunately the DSP is not released yet, but I have the unit and it will be a firmware update. The sharc chip is already in the box. They will implement a reverb, a suped of version of their Channel Strip, one of my favorite eq plugs. The comp in it isn't the greatest but it is suppose to be improved. There will be a multi band compressor and I think another dynamics plug. I think you'll be able to port Spectrafoo from this chip as well.

Plus with the firmware updates will have a unit that has more staying power.

So although the unit isn't complete it basically all there. I've been using it to record and mix at 88.2k with no problems. I'm impressed with this unit to the extent that I've invested in a few more. Metric Halo has built some tools in the past that I think are still way ahead of the curve, most notably Spectrafoo. They've spent a lot of time considering the ins and outs of this box and I think it's paying off, at least for me.

Check them out at http://www.mhlabs.com/index2.html and also yahoo the user list is also at their site.

Originally posted by henryrobinett:

This is the only box that is fully firewire bus powerable. I don't know whether this is important to you or not but you can take this out with an iBook, throw up 8 mics, with very good mic pres, powered completely from your iBook (or other laptops) battery.

That sounds unbelievably cool - but how long does your ibook battery last using that configuration?

Thanks for that great post Henry - really usefull info - I'm almost sold now - Rich :w:

I beg to differ. I have the Metric Halo 2882+Dsp. I think the pres are quite good.

I used one of the very first one's released and the pres were quite 'grainy', with sort of an edge to anything above 5K or so. I've talked to a couple of other early adopters that had similar experiences. I returned the one I had and so did a couple of other people I know.

That said I don't doubt that they've improved the pres and a number of other things. I returned the unit I had and have not tried one recently. I'm glad to hear that they've improved the quality.

And yes, Julian is right, my first post didn't really answer your question. What I should have said was that in my experience the piece didn't hold up when compared to older technology. But again, it sounds like that is no longer true.

I do agree that some of the earlier versions had a darker, grainer sound. This has been improved. That's the great thing about how this box is set up. Firmware and software up grades/downloads. Plus you can always go back to earlier versions. It sounds much more open and clearer.