Hi Gang...

Well... I'm still trying to turn my gifted Mac Pro into my Sonar DAW and it looks as tho I will finally have the money for the big three... X2, Windows 7 Ultimate, and an interface...

With the impending demise I would like to go with a USB device, and while looking I found that Tascam has this one (US-1800) with 14 analog inputs (8 with mic pre and 6 line/instrument only) for only $299 street! That so beats everyone else's price that I'm a bit scared...

Does anyone have any opinions about the Tascam gear? The last piece of tascam gear I owned was back in the 3340 days.... Wait I take that back. I do have a tascam DAT recorder that may/not work....

They offer 64bit drivers... so I'm wondering... Are the converters decent? Does the driver work well? Can you daisy more than one? (future)... do they behave well with Sonar?

I've still got a few days before I have the cash and will be looking to purchase... and I do have quite a few mic pre's already so I can use/not use theirs and simply use it as all line in (as I do now with my SSL/Soundscape Mixtreme 192 16 track)...

But the price is so low that I wonder...........

Anyone have any experience with their interfaces of this sort? I could really use some opinions and advice...

Much thanks...
Keni

Whoa... 14 ins and 8 pres for $300?! Yeah, that's getting into FAR too good to be true territory. IDK though, I've seen a couple of guys here say that Tascam is puttin' on their hustle again so maybe they'll smoke the market in coming years. I liked their stuff back in the day so it'd be nice to see them back at the top.

I have it, on X1d 64 and the 64bit drivers work flawlessly.

ASIO latency on my Asus i7 laptop is imperceptible with Zeta 2.

ASIO does not allow more than one interface at a time and there is no chaining available.

However:

I also have the US-1641, identical forerunner with different cosmetics and I have run both at the same time using ASIO4All. But the tracks of the two are delayed and must  be manually re-alligned afterwards.
 
I have a good selection of pres on mixers and Edirol interfaces and the Tascam's pres are on a par with the latest Mackie pres. Connecting a Neumann TLM103, I hear the microphone noise above the pre's noise.
 
The US1800 is redesigned. There is no green signal LED because the threshold switches on the US122 and 144 click on guitar, so that problem is solved. And they have taken out the transformer and put the switching supplies on a separate board, far from the pres.
 
The gain, but also the attenuation range of the pres, is wide, allowing me to use my weak-output Shure SM7b and high-output TLM103 with no problems.
 
In my experience, Tascam's quoted specifications have always been conservative.
 
The computer-direct fader is linear over the whole range.
 
All-in-all, a great unit.
 
I removed the 19" mounting brackets and put it in a standard laptop sleeve together with my laptop in my rucksack.
 
 

I also have the us1641 , I heard it's the same unit with a face lift too. 

All I can say is for the price it is a solid well built unit. Steel, not plastic. Jacks are properly fastened. 
The mike pre's are above average in this price range and are it's best feature, You can actually use them. It has all the proper ins/outs and front panel controls.
 It's rack mountable. 
IT PLUGS INTO THE WALL! this is a huge improvement over USB power which sucks for using phantom power. This one will power up a bunch of condenser mikes through a 160' snake.
The drivers were sketchy for me with WinXP 32 bit, But now the Windows 7 64 bit drivers are very stable.So be careful of negative reviews from the past! 
The Round Trip latency is also what some complained about, I used to get 27ms but now I get from 9ms to 12ms.  depending on resolution of recording. ( I use 44.1/ 24  see no point in higher for my work) 
RTL does not make any difference to your recording experience unless you use real time EFX's. 
Anyhow I highly recommend it if your recording  live bands or drums. Even for one person it's nice to keep all your stuff patched in.  I find it as well made as all my other Tascam products I own (ed) , Not state of the art, but a good workhorse for small studios. . 


It was actually supposed to retail for more like $800 which is about the price point I would expect to pay, Don't no why they are almost giving them away. 

Just a small comment,I have a Tascam us1641,Good unit,  But relies on the computer for much of the actual processing,I now moved up to a MOTU 828MK3,which really cuts the load on the computer,and the nice feature it can be used as a stand alone live mixer.(processing internaly )
 
I still have the Tascam and leave it hooked up to a 2 computer just for drums.if you can go for the MOTU or Avid...in the long run it's cheaper....if not you'll just keep upgrading your computer and jamming it up .
 
Just one other point about MOTU,you can daisy chain up to 5 units,as you know that ASIO will only reconize 1 unit driver...so with the tascam and many other units you would have to sell and re purchase a larger unit.I have always found this a loosing option.
 
Big Plus even on smaller Motu units they all can run at 96k,and do not have to run on ASIO driver,,take a look before you buy the tascam.
I also use a 2 channel edirol/rolland interface for a laptop.very handy.
 
Gary

Why Windows 7 Ultimate? Windows 7 Home is fine if you have less than 16GB of memory. If you need more than that, then Windows Professional will allow up to 256GB and will give you the virtual XP session if your CPU supports it and you have a need. 

Thanks Guyz....

That makes things a little easier. I too can't understand why they are blowing these out at such a low price... and I'm so broke that I haven't been able to buy even a stereo interface for my new Mac Pro (running Windows) but some cash has just come my way and I'm trying to stretch it.... I currently have two workstations. One is an old P4 running Sonar 5 with 32 i/o (two Soundscape Mixtreme cards under win2k)... Not a lot of power but it can handle that many i/o if/when I ever need it. My main DAW is a Vista32 core2duo with a single SSL/Soundscape Mixtreme 192 which has 16 i/o... enuf for most small bands' basics.... Again not a lot ow power but X1 runs well there for the most part.

The new Mac Pro is dual Xeon Quad Cores and 16GB of RAM! I'm so frustrated not being able to get at that power....

So, the interface itself sounds like a good buy for me right now as it will still give me reasonable band recording capabilities for the price of a stereo interface....

I'm a bit confused about a few things tho. I typically use WDM as I've had good response with it and it's easier to adjust on the fly as a project's demands change... It was my understanding that ASIO drivers would allow multiple units, but only if they are identical.... Even a 1641 isn't an exact match to the 1800...

The latency issue sounds good as I'm sued to running at near 30ms during most of my work and only with certain needs adjust the situation so that I can run down below 10ms... Such as playing a VSTi... I can run at 1ms, but not with anything practical loaded so I use a quick 8ms or so and can usually manage.... So I think I'll be able to handle it's latency ok...

We'll see how it performs and if it's not as good as I expect, it will suffice until I can buy something more high-end...

Windows Ultimate/Pro/?........... As you can see, I'm trying to run dual quad processors and 16GB so I know I need at least Pro... As the cost difference is relatively small I just figure I might as well go the last few bucks and have Ultimate...

With my SSL/Soundscape gear I've always been able to run multiple units and even mixed devices... I was running two Mixtreme cards and a Mixpander (all Soundscape) simultaneously and cleanly....

I've heard good things about the MOTU gear as well but it would cost me more than twice as much to have 16 i/o (Tascam's is only 14 but that will do much of the time)... So I've considered them in the long run...

I really like the Focusrite pre's, but their 8 i/o interface is firewire and I'm trying not to lock into that standard as it appears to be falling from use... The Tascam is USB...

I've also considered the Presonus which now has a very nice USB 8 i/o device out but again this will cost too much for me right now. I like their' pre's as well for general use... Not designer but transparent and clean with a lot of range...

Thanks for all the responses. I think I can buy this with reasonable comfort now...

Keni

[edit]

I almost forgot to mention... My reason for not simply using the Mixtreme 192 interface (which I wish I could) is that the Soundscape line has essentially been terminated by SSL and tho there's some kind of 64 bit driver released as beta, it's been thus for years now with little chance of it changing and it's soooo hard to get/find! <sigh>... Oh and even more fundamental (tho I could manage a workaround) is that it is PCI and the Mach only has PCIe slots.... <sigh>...

[end edit]

I was gonna buy Win7 Ultimate for my DAW but it is only going to be supported until 2015 as opposed to Pro and Home which will be supported until 2018. Also you don't REALLY get that much more with ultimate and most of it wouldn't really be useful to the average user anyway. Go with Pro... it's awesome and as was pointed out you get the virtual XP with it which is useful for old programs and games.

I sometimes use a US1641 with W7 64 bit with no problems.  My R.T. latency is 15 mc. at 88200/24.  There are better interfaces out there if you want to spend some money but it is decent for the price. Like Cactus Music said it's good for recording live bands or real drums.

The MOTU 828MK3 has of course only 8 inputs, but with the ADAT interface, you can link more. But it is a pro unit with a pro price.

When I do not need 14 channels, I use my 2-input PreSonus AudioBox 22VSL. It is good for overdubbing vocals because you can have reverb in the singers headphones without it being recorded.

As I said, I have both the US-1641 and the US-1800. For some reason, you have to install separate drivers for each of them.

ASIO only allows one interface at a time, not two (or more) even if they are identical.

But if I use ASIO4All I can use both, but as I pointed out, the tracks on one are delayed and must be manually lined up. Note that ASIO4All is a layer over WDM, so the latency is not great. But for recording a band, you won't notice.

So if you are playing a VSTi live, use one interface only and ASIO for lowest latency. If I play Zeta 2 and fast attack sounds, I feel like I'm playing a hardware synth, it's that fast.