Anybody using the Presonus 1818VSL or Presonus 44VSL? Thoughts?

http://forum.cakewalk.com/incompatibility-presonus-1818-m3457825.aspx

(Sorry can't create a link on my *$#&** iPad- copy paste into browser)

Great link. Thank you, Brando.

Ruckman65
Anybody using the Presonus 1818VSL or Presonus 44VSL? Thoughts?

They suck! (Presonus 1818VSL, anyway) They dropped the "VSL" functionality with Win10 although they still market it as having that feature. No onboard direct monitoring capabilities. I jettisoned mine and went Roland - never happier.

My 44VSL is in the closet.
 
My Tascam US-16x08 is awesome, especially with the new v2 driver that added the Mixer (WDM) driver, so you can have Win10 sounds and ASIO at the same time.

I have the 44vsl on a Win10 x64 system.  I'm happy with the unit but I like the vsl software, which was discontinued with the new driver updates.  So I'm running with a legacy driver.  Presonus seems to have abandoned the Virtual Studio Live interface but still sells these units as 44vsl-1818vsl, which tells me all I need to know about the Presonus business model.

BrFrBob
I have the 44vsl on a Win10 x64 system.  I'm happy with the unit but I like the vsl software, which was discontinued with the new driver updates.  So I'm running with a legacy driver.  Presonus seems to have abandoned the Virtual Studio Live interface but still sells these units as 44vsl-1818vsl, which tells me all I need to know about the Presonus business model.

Thought about a class action suit against those slimy bastards...

I'm still using my 44VSL with Win 7.

Geez, it's hard to decide on an audio interface. For example, The Maartian swears by his Tascam US-16x08 and reviews I have read have people swearing at the unit. Same holds true for most interfaces. You slap down your dollars and then just hope that the unit plays nice with your computer. I like the look of the Presonus VSL units but the VSL software, now discontinued, was a big draw. I like the look of the Focusrite 6i6 and the routing software that comes with it. Some reviews are great, others terrible. The Roland Quad is another one that looks good but has wildly varying reviews. What to do??? 

To be honest, I was looking at a different option when the Tascam showed up for $200 on an MF SDotD. So, I vectored.
 
Last year, there was 6+ weeks delay between Win10 shipping and Tascam getting the driver updated to support it. Lots of gripping about that. With the v1.04 driver release, it became a very stable interface. The new v2.0 driver was released a couple of weeks ago. For the 16x08 and 20x20 (not the 2x2 or 4x4), v2.0 added the Mixing driver, which supports parallel WDM audio (albeit with higher latency). Not ASIO multi-client, but still really nice to have. For example, I can switch Windows audio to the Mixing driver while I have SONAR open and a Groove3 SD2 video up in my browser. When I no longer want the higher quality audio from Windows, I switch back to the internal Realtek audio.
 
Another unique feature of the 16x08 is that it will default to an 8-input mic preamp when no USB is present (it routes the 8 mic pre inputs directly to the 8 line outputs). Makes it future-proof to me. Where else was I going to get 8 really good mic preamps for $200? Even at it's list of $300, I still think it's a pretty good deal.
 
Note that in my situation, the VSL feature of the PreSonus i/f turned out to be of little to no added value. I just couldn't get the driver to work under Win10 on my PC, no matter what I did. And then I got banned from their forum for asking for help (as in "is there anyone out there?") a few too many times. So, I started looking around, and abandoned Studio One for SONAR, and never looked back.
 
Bottom line...
 
The Tascam device became available at a too-good-to-be-true price and has turned out to be well-worth the initial hassle of getting it up and running under Win10. It does what I need it to do, and isn't cluttered with features I don't need. The driver was developed and continues to be maintained in-house. The v2.0 driver was a very pleasant surprise. Nice to know they're actively maintaining it. Quality hardware. Thus my "awesome" rating. YMMV.