Workplace clearout but which toy to take?

Somecrimesitry

Hi all,

My company previously had an audio engineering area but is currently clearing out all the gear so what from this list is worth bagging? It wouldn't be for resale but for my own small home studio.

Echo AudioFire 12
Mackie Onyx 400F
Mackie Onyx Satellite
Motu 828 mkII
Presonus FireStation mLAN

I can probably take no more than one but I'll have first pick. I'm thinking its one out of Motu 828 mkII, Mackie Onyx 400F and Echo AudioFire 12. Any advice much appreciated.

studiorat

Somecrimesitry wrote: »

Hi all,

My company previously had an audio engineering area but is currently clearing out all the gear so what from this list is worth bagging? It wouldn't be for resale but for my own small home studio.

Echo AudioFire 12
Mackie Onyx 400F
Mackie Onyx Satellite
Motu 828 mkII
Presonus FireStation mLAN

I can probably take no more than one but I'll have first pick. I'm thinking its one out of Motu 828 mkII, Mackie Onyx 400F and Echo AudioFire 12. Any advice much appreciated.

Either of the Mackies, I like the satellite with the talkback and control room monitor. The 400 if you need the extra 2 channels I suppose.

The presonus are decent but I don't know what the story is with mLan support is these days.

peter05

What are those onyx preamps like? I have not heard them yet. I is a fan of those motu interfaces you can't go wrong especially adding a daisy chain unit to them.

I reckon your spoilt for choice really.

Somecrimesitry

Ya the spoilt for choice bit is the problem really cause I've never used any of these brands of gear before, until recently I was just bumbling along using a crappy internal on a PC but it was all I needed at the time cause everything was within Ableton anyway. In the last year or so things got financially much better so I'm starting to put together a better setup while learning Logic and getting more into external gear. Now I've a chance to blag a quality firewire interface thats light years ahead of what I've been using but I've no experience of Mackie, Motu, etc gear so any advice is much appreciated.

From trawling the net both of those Mackies while having excellent preamp's & features seem to have a lot of problems, even Mackies own forums are full of complaints. Features aren't much use if the device has fundamental problems with firewire, firmware, whining noises, etc. The Motu might be the better option but I'll do more research tomorrow on the Motu and Presonus. Like anything I'm sure the Motu and Presonus forums are also full of complaints too:)

Might be best to see if I could bring home two of the interfaces and test them out fully for a few days. Cheeky I know but it would be a pisser to take one thats glitchy or even damaged. I won't really get a chance to test them out much at work bar a quick power on and mess with whatever is lying about for a few mins.

Cheers.

HyperC

Sorry for hijacking your tread mate, but could you get me a price on the Presonus FireStation,I'd be interested in buying if it's going for the right price?

Thanks

Somecrimesitry

HyperC wrote: »

Sorry for hijacking your tread mate, but could you get me a price on the Presonus FireStation,I'd be interested in buying if it's going for the right price?

Thanks

Sorry I can't sell any of them cause their all registered on the companies logging system, anything I take will have to be be signed out in my name. Sometimes old items are just "forgotten" about by managers once signed out for a few years if there is no longer a business need for them but I would still need to account for them if a recall was ordered for the foreseeable future.

Otherwise I'd have just bagged them all, kept the the one I wanted and sold off the rest for a tidy profit:D