PreSonus Firebox Firewire Audio Interface

This is a very sturdy box, with good build quality. Hooking it up to my Desktop PC was simple and there were no issues. I managed to get 3 ms latency in Traktor without any slowdowns or stutters and other than the confusion in getting all six outputs to work, I was having a blast with this thing.

Then I bought a Dell Inspiron 6400 to use for DJing. Unfortunately, though no fault of the Firebox, it is impossible to get it working without playback sound stuttering every couple minutes or so. After searching the PreSonus forums, I found out that it is most likely an issue with the Firewire chipset on in the laptop sharing an IRQ channel with the Intel graphics. Some people have had moderate success by disabling the DVD drive (EH?!), turning off WIFI, reducing the CPU priority and a whole host of other things. None of these solved the problem 100% for me. I'm hoping an add-in card will get this sorted.

Before this, I used a Soundblaster USB card for my mixing, splitting the stereos to two monos to get working three decks in Traktor. This didn't work well with stereo sound, and tended to be a bit weak on the volume. The gains on my mixer were set at about half to three quarters whereas now with the Firebox, it is barely at a quarter!

So, other than the issues with the laptop, I am well and truly in love with this piece of kit.