This is all great news. I'm hoping Tascam adds onboard DSP in the future. That's what it would take for me to consider a change. With that said, the strides Tascam is achieving latency wise is the only reason this perked my interest. 

The new models do not include DSP. I think they blew their budget on the mic pres.

I wanted to add a few facts about my Presonus VSL44...
1. 64 buffers is only available at 44.1 and 48 kHz.
2. At 96 kHz 128 is the minimum, but roundtrip latency is 4.7.

Craig,
Did you test the unit on a USB 3.0 port.  Tascam says it works on them. I know Focusrite and Presonus
were having trouble on USB 3.0 ports.
 
Thanks,
 

InstrEd
Did you test the unit on a USB 3.0 port.  Tascam says it works on them. I know Focusrite and Presonus
were having trouble on USB 3.0 ports.

The US-2x2 and 4s4 both work fine with the USB 3.0 ports on my notebook, which was manufactured within the past two years. I have not tested with my desktop yet, whose motherboard was one of the very early ones with USB 3.0. It's pretty squirrely with USB 3.0 devices, so I don't have high expectations. If the TASCAM interfaces work with it, they'll probably work with anything that has USB 3.0.

Anderton

InstrEd
Did you test the unit on a USB 3.0 port.  Tascam says it works on them. I know Focusrite and Presonus
were having trouble on USB 3.0 ports.

The US-2x2 and 4s4 both work fine with the USB 3.0 ports on my notebook, which was manufactured within the past two years. I have not tested with my desktop yet, whose motherboard was one of the very early ones with USB 3.0. It's pretty squirrely with USB 3.0 devices, so I don't have high expectations. If the TASCAM interfaces work with it, they'll probably work with anything that has USB 3.0.

Thanks for the information

what would be really nice is if Tascam took the SDK for the fw 1884 and wrote up to date parameters controls for sonar..  Jus Saying I still use it.. It works fine just been losing some controls as newer versions of sonar comes out.
 

Bapu. I do enjoy real faders when Im mixing, so I can say I will never go 100% with a touch screen only. 
 The nostalgic feel and look of a real mixing board be it a midi contoller , or whatever, just puts me in the zone..  To work . So many things can distract you when your working , So feeling like Im behind a console makes me alittle more inspirational
A touch screen will never replace an actual fader/Knob . But yeah my mouse has been getting more and more love nowadays .

yellowcake64
Are you still sticking by your guns and saying that these Tascam units hold their own when compared to similar competitive products?

Talk about putting someone on the spot
 
 

yellowcake64
Thanks Craig. In the new year (when I move into a new property) I'm gonna need to by a new interface. I was hellbent on the Focusrite 6i6 but after hearing you rave about the new Tascam US-2x2 and 4x4 units, I'm definitely leaning towards the 4x4 now because I only really need 4 inputs.

Are you still sticking by your guns and saying that these Tascam units hold their own when compared to similar competitive products?

Thanks
YC

Frankly, you can't go wrong with either one. However there are some differences. The 6i6 has S/PDIF I/O; the US series does not have digital I/O (a lot of the parts cost went into the discrete component-based preamps). Also, the TASCAM units put out +44V for phantom power. I measured a Focusrite interface (can't recall which) once when writing a review and it produced about +34V. Normally that's not a problem, but can be for some mics. One of Gibson's product specialists measured the phantom power on a 2i2 and it was also around +34V, so you might want to check the 6i6. I don't know how direct monitoring works on the 6i6, but on the US interfaces, it's stereo and can crossfade with the computer output. 
 
I'm not sure what the gain spec is for the 6i6, but the TASCAM does +57dB, which is more than a lot of other interfaces...important if you're capturing sounds with dynamic mics. That's also enough for ribbons unless the input levels are quite low.
 
I'm using the US-4x4 in my studio because it performs better than the V-Studio audio interface (I still use the V-Studio control surface, though) and besides, i don't need all the I/O the V-Studio provides. If you want to check out the specs, I ran the US-2x2 interface through a Rightmark analyzer (specs are the same for the 4x4) and incorporated them in an article about audio interface specifications. They're quite impressive.

Thanks Craig. I think both would be good choices. I am still leaning towards the Tascam simply because I don't think I'd need six inputs. At this price point I know I'm not going to get perfection but it's good to see that good quality products are available at the lower end of the market! 
 
Cheers 
YC

pentimentosound
This link shows some (a Japanese company)tests of the Tascam UH-7000, that I just found on Gearslutz.
http://av.watch.impress.co.jp/img/avw/docs/644/196/html/44.png.html
 
I don't know how to tell how good news the tests are. Some of it looks very good. Any feedback will help. Especially on the large spikes! LOL
Is it likely that the new I/O units will have similar results? When you mention new drivers for the next generation of I/O, do you mean these 2X2, 4X4 and 16X08?
According the various places selling/offering the 16X08, it "does have DSP". Did that get left behind on the cutting room floor? January shows up as the "available date" for the 16X08 and Craig has only mentioned testing the smaller two units. Any chance you'll get that one earlier, Craig?

I'm sure I'll get a 16x08 when it becomes available but I don't know much about it yet.
 
This article will help you understand specs by explaining what the "large spikes" are (they're the test signals used as part of the measurement process) and includes audio analysis of the 2x2 and 4x4. FYI I haven't tested the 16x08 so don't know the extent of the DSP. The lack of DSP was referring specifically to the 2x2 and 4x4; the previous equivalents (US-322 and US-366) did have DSP.
 
Anyway, I can draw a few conclusions from the UH-7000 tests...

• The 2x2 and 4x4 preamps must indeed be derived from the UH-7000 because the specs are pretty much identical...very notable given the price point.
• Noise levels are really, really low. In my tests o the 2x2 and 4x4 I cranked up the gain to give a "real-world" indication of noise as opposed to the input noise, and it was still below -110 dB. The performance seems very much like the UH-7000.
• THD+noise shows the most prominent distortion components as 3rd and 5th harmonic distortion. Both distortion products are 100 dB below the output, so that's essentially inaudible (remember, dither is around-85 dB and this is anothet 15 dB below that). This is the same as with the 2x2 and 4x4. So the bottom line is distortion would be masked by dither noise.
• Intermod distortion shows three distortion components, one below -100 dB and two below -110. Again, very low.
• The crosstalk spec is phenomenal, the best by far I've seen in any of the dozens of interfaces I've tested. IIRC correctly the priciest Avid MBox Pro 3rd gen interface comes the closest. This is no doubt due to TASCAM using separate power supplies for the left and right channels, although that alone wouldn't be enough - I'm going to assume the circuit board layout is part of why this spec is so low. 

Overall, rating the performance as "excellent" is certainly justified by the numbers. My only complaint about the UH-7000 is it doesn't have a direct input for guitar.

Craig: Concerning the 16X08.... It appears the first 8 channels are on XLR only into the preamps. I need 16 line ins. Any work around for that? Right now, it's looking like the new MOTU 16A might be the best way to go for my needs.
 

Too bad. It looks like an interesting unit. Unfortunately, I've got too many preamps that would require line in's to make that configuration work.
 

On my wish list is a good keyboard controller with deep Sonar integration, much like Nektar has done with reason and Ableton... indeed, there are many controllers with great Ableton integration and it is the single biggest frustration I have with Sonar...
 
Or maybe the Bakers just need to assign someone to come up with really good Sonar templates for all the existing keyboards or at least some of them... this would be great and much quicker.  The Nektar panorama keyboard is a beautiful kit...and they're working on an 88 key version which will make it the ONLY awesome 88 key unit with state of the art screens/design... X3/4 should be part of this...