I have a friend who recently purchased a Tascam US 16x8 audio interface a few months ago and has been trash mouthing it ever since and he claims it's a very expensive piece junk because he can't do what it's supposed to do without running into unusable latency and or crashing Studio One.
 It HAS to be Tascam's crappy drivers he kept insisting, which I kept doubting simply because the unit was working.
 He refused to believe it and insisted I come over to see what a piece of junk the Tascam is because he never had these problems with the Presonus Audio Box 2x2.
 Now I'm an avid fan of Focusrite audio interfaces but I've always really, really liked Teac/Tascam. So much, if they made computer audio interfaces "first" I most likely wouldn't have even tried the Focusrite audio interfaces.
I actually still have my first multi track tape deck I bought in the early 70's, a Teac 3340, and it still works! The only thing I really don't like about it is it requires reels of  approx $70(us) 1/4" x 2500'  of magnetic tape on 10" reels which it gobbles up rather fast @ 15 ips i = approx. $140(us) per hour.
$140 (us) can buy literally 1000's of hours of digital jam time @ literally 1000's of times less real estate with literally infinite amount less generation loss.
Now I'm not going to get into any discussions about tape sounding better then digital recording other then saying that's not only ridiculous, it's against the laws of physics and economics, and NONE of that is or ever was Teac's of Tascam's fault. And after all these years I find it hard to believe it ever will be.
 So I went over to his place with a few mics and guitar that I'm intimately familiar with and recorded an acoustic solo tune I've been working on consisting of vocals; Audio Technica AT 4050 lg condenser mic, Alvarez Acoustic guitar with Fishman electronics plugged direct in, and 2 Rode NT5 sm condenser mics 1 pointed around the 12th fret, the other at the bridge. I dialed in a touch of reverb, a tad of EQ to the monitors and recorded direct and low and behold, I recorded without any issues or artifacts, and got maybe even a little more than I expected.
 He was still not happy and whining about the FX not being recorded.. I told him that it was a major PLUS that there was no FX cross talk creeping in between monitor out/wet signal and DAW input/dry signal, as I was ALWAYS sorry later on every time I printed FX during mixing sessions, even using my old beloved killer sounding vintage outboard gear like the Focusrite LiquidChannel channel strip, it's a bad idea to record FX to a one and only track.
 I find it impossible to get that simple rule into many artist's heads.
 
 Just as I find it impossible to get it in my friend's head that not only is the Tascam US 16x 8 a very impressive sounding extremely inexpensive value packed best bang for the buck audio interface I think I've ever seen and heard, it is also more than capable of out performing his poor little old computer's ability to record more than 4 tracks at once.
 
Just because the audio interface can do it, doesn't mean the computer can.

Anderton

jpetersen
@Craig Anderton - it's quite possible that 5 times more interfaces are sold than DAWs. I find I am reluctant to re-learn a new DAW once I have one I am familiar with. But I am always looking out for better performance and more inputs from an interface.

I would guess few people buy a new interface every year.

Did I really buy one a year?
Sheesh. I guess I must've.

In case it wasn't clear, what I meant was that those figures repeat year after year. In fact there have been some years where interfaces outsold DAWs 8:1. Let's assume every first-time DAW owner also buys an interface. That still leaves a huge number of current users buying new interfaces every year...or maybe they'be buying the interfaces but don't buy a DAW, then just use Audacity or get Reaper and don't pay for it. I don't know.

Steev
...the Tascam US 16x 8 a very impressive sounding extremely inexpensive value packed best bang for the buck audio interface I think I've ever seen and heard, it is also more than capable of out performing his poor little old computer's ability to record more than 4 tracks at once.

 
I actually do spec tests on interfaces. I won't mention the ones that don't fare so well, I'm a nice guy, but the TASCAM ones are excellent in terms of input noise, THD, IM, etc. The most surprising aspect to me was crosstalk. Most inexpensive interfaces have fairly major crosstalk at the highest frequencies, which I think may be why some people think digital audio "collapses the soundstage." The TASCAM 2x2 and 4x4 had much better crosstalk specs than other units I've tested in the same price range.
 
Too bad the Cakewalk blog doesn't exist anymore, I posted test results from audio analysis software. You can't argue with those kind of results.
 
 

Good to hear as I literally this evening opened my latest i/o score a Tascam US20x20 (USB 3) which I’d been thinking of getting for awhile but was putting it off. New Year Eve impulse buy, on sale plus a bonus of a rebate for a Tascam TM 80 mic and TH 2 headphones ~ ok! While I have a nice stash of mics and cans, the more the merrier...

In my ‘procrastination period’ I’d forgotten about it’s onboard DSP mixer, reverb and compressors on every channel. Since I also do Live Sound this forgotten info was superb to discover. Next I want grab a Midas XL48 to lightpipe to it for 8 more mic pres and the little mobile rig is pretty tight.

DAW wise I’m sticking with Platinum because why not? I also have Waves Tracks Live because it’s free and runs like a straight up recorder designed for tracking live shows. It does not have any means of using plugins (crazy but I have a few Waves plugs like the API collection) as it is intended to be used in conjunction with high end digital consoles as the mix engine.

The more daunting challenge is what to record since the value of an album in today’s world is about how much? Oh yeah pretty much nothing at all since hardly anyone buys music anymore...

GreenwoodStudios
In my ‘procrastination period’ I’d forgotten about it’s onboard DSP mixer, reverb and compressors on every channel.

Yes, but the compressors are post-A/D converters, so you can't use them to avoid clipping coming in from the outside world.
 

Craig, I missed your reply to my original post, Thanks for your inside view,, It was only a story I made up that I thought sounded possible.. I hope that was clear.
 
I'm a big Tascam fan and have often pointed people towards looking at a Tascam as apposed to the Focusrite because Tascam's have better features at the same price points. Like having a power supply option. And I find my 6i6 pre amps are super fussy about levels. The Tascam I can hit a lot harder. I will never buy another Focusrite, I would buy Tascam or if feeling flush an RME or Motu. 
It would have been so cool if Tascam had produced a mixer/ controller that was integrated with Sonar like the Roland V 700. THAT I would buy. 

Craig like Cactus Music, I also thank you for your insight too.

In replying to your reply to my post I’ve never used hardware nor software compression in order to not clip an input. These days we have plenty of headroom in our rigs and s/n is lower than ever in DAWs, we are not trying yo push magnetic particles to +9 on two inch. Input clipping to me is someone not paying attention as they should. I do it by second nature as I been around since the days of Shure M67s, Tapcos and UniSync ~ hah! After that there was the time when you may have had a couple of channels worth of compression and had to decide what to used it on, the remainder of your inputs you had to ride if you wanted to run things really hot.

When channel strips started having comps on ever channel it was amazing, but people overdid it a bit because they had, it was there and damn it It’s better if you always use it. Nope, music and dynamics matter. Too much can be a bad thing. I listen to my inputs first as I always have, rather than look at a display first. These days I tell younger folks use your ears and trust them over what the latest app on your iPad says.

My point was comenting on yours was simply that the US20x20 unit as my i/o is great ~ because the way I see it the interaction between Cakewalk and Tascam (being part of Gibson) ‘might’ have meant that some knowledge was shared between the two and that I believe would create a better product and experience to the end user. That there is also a 20 channel digital mixer (with 4 band eq, verb and comps) designed into a 1ru unit is a nice layer of sweet icing on an already neat product.

I feel the same about Sonar and the time and effort put forth by Noel in conjunction with Intel to bring us a 64bit DAW IMHO means that Intel knows what our usage of the processors require as opposed to a word processor or graphics design program.

To me progress is great but even today people are still wanting to track to 2 inch if they can and have the cash. Those old huge machines are long out of production and still used if desired or needed.

I think the same of Sonar, if it works for you, does it matter if it’s no longer available? Not to me...

I’d like to say thanks to you and to Noel for posting on here, clearly it provides the collective ‘us’ with a feeling that people are still caring enough to get on here and type. While the bickering gets to be a bit much I also an thankful for Mr. CakeAlexSHere for his own views/input because without it perhaps you and Noel would not have chimed in. That some names ‘we’ have seen for years in communications from Cakewalk are now still being heard from is comforting. What I hope will happen is that everyone can chill and together via this forum we can learn and teach best use of the multitude of facets Sonar has become from the hard work for 30 years this software company put in even if it never transitions to whatever the ‘crystal ball’ holds.

Lastly I in the past month on here have blindly speculated that this shutdown could be an accountant firm’s plan of a write down tax wise and like GigaStudio just vanished one day so could Sonar or even this website. That Noel has suggested that might not be the case is awesome, we will obviously all wait and see. Cheers!