What's your DAW?

I'm running Sonar 7 on my PC. I'm not sure if this makes a difference, but I'm using a m audio firewire 410 currently, and I often get audio dropouts, and my projects won't playback, but this same setup works fine on my brother's Toshiba (I have an HP).

Not to be a PC troll, but I'd be willing to bet that your "dropouts" and "files won't play" is directly connected to your operating system. At least you aren't using Pro Tools, this thread would be over pretty quick.

I like the firebox as I use it on a pretty usual basis and don't really have any complaints. It's got really good built in preamps for the price. You can turn them up to like 9.5 out of 10 without any detrimental effects, then after that the squeal hits. It is electrically and physically solid. Capable of 24 bit 96k recording. It comes with Cubase recording software, which gets good reviews.

I'm not sure about the m-audio piece, as I have no first hand experience. I've used other M-Audio pieces and wasn't really fond of them. The ProFire seems pretty well built. It can record up to 192k, which is a little overkill, even for a pro engineer, I don't know why you would want to go above 96k, as in most circumstances even that is overkill. 20 dB pad is also a good touch.

It seems the FireBox has more line ins and the ProFire has more line outs. They both seem to be good units but I think you get more with the FireBox IMO, then again I've never tried the ProFire.

stratman312 wrote: but I'm using a m audio firewire 410 currently, and I often get audio dropouts, and my projects won't playback, but this same setup works fine on my brother's Toshiba (I have an HP).

You will likely need to change the buffer sample size depending on which computer you are running. Also, if you are using the onboard 4 pin firewire port-don't. Get an expansion firewire card.

Also of importance is all the add on crap pre-installed on your HP (or the Toshiba for that matter). HP's usually come with some version of Norton preinstalled and removing it successfully without the Norton Removal Tool is usually not.

There are a ton of other HP "addons" that will destroy latency values of the computer but nothing that cannot be overcome with a clean fresh install of the OS. That will solve most of your issues along with finding your range of buffer samples specific to your computer.