Are the Presonus or Saffire units rackmountable -- or do they at least have rack adapters? I have the space to rack them in my studio desk, and it sure we be nice to keep them organized and out of the way a bit. -ryan

Just to even confuse the issue more-- Tascam USED to suck ,But they work perfectly fine under 64 bit drivers now.
And low latency is NOT important unless you are monitoring real time efxs ( Guitar rig)
My RTL is  9-12ms depending on settings.  

For the money they are an excellent solid interfaces and perfect for those who record live bands. The pre amps are as good as you'll get in this  price range.
If you only need 2 inputs then ya, buy something with low RTL, but if you are looking for lots of inputs,  nothing comes even close in price to the Tascam us 1800.
A few years ago there where lots of complaints, but have you noticed how quiet we ( Tascam owners) are now!

  Cactus, Well in my environment it's possible that I will need more than 2 inputs, and everyone in a while I may definitely have the need to record live drums or a live show with more inputs. So to have multiple in's would be a plus, even though I wouldn't use them all of time. I would probably record my guitars by mic'ing and amp or using my POD that I have, also. I've read that ppl have just done just fine with Sonar X1 and the US1800 with just a minor bit of tweaking. What's your experience? I have owned other Tascam gear in the past, and have always been happy.

@Markyzno...I will take your word for it, and I guess others should as well....I went 64 bit and Motu at the same time, so I never had the issues! :-P

@Jim... I'm curious on your take of the Focusrite Scarlett series (or any of their products really) vs. the Presonus stuff. Mainly latency, drivers and mic pres but general thoughts would be nice too. I really am digging my Scarlett but it seems a lot of folks here like the Presonus interfaces. I'll probably continue as a Focusrite customer until I can afford a MOTU but I do like to learn as much as I can about these types of things and it seems like Presonus is the most comparable to Focusrite in that price range/quality. Cheers.

Focusrite's forte is fidelity.  
Ultra low round-trip latency is not their strongest point.
Good pre's/converters (especially for the price)

If lowest possible round-trip latency is important to you (and you're on somewhat of a budget), you can't beat the Presonus VSL units.  

Thank you, Jim. That is good to know as it means I made the correct choice. Sound is far more important to me than latency. I was experiencing some annoying latency at factory settings but once I tweaked it down I got it to around 7ms roundtrip which is fine for me. No drop outs either but I have a pretty good machine. Cheers.

hi ry1633

My story was I had an M audio fast track and it had a couple of issues, the big one was it kept cutting out. So when I went on line looking for a replacement I spotted the Tascam on sale for $300. I had only had issues when using it with one of my computers under XP 32 bit. But it works OK with my laptop.    

Then I got a  W7 64 bit computer. I was happy to find that the Tascam ran perfectly fine with the new 64 bit drivers. My RTL dropped in half too.
I find the mike pre amps to be very good; lot's of gain and  quiet. This is very important to my way of working.  The box is steel and rack mountable with all the jacks properly secured. It is made like a professional piece of gear, not like most interfaces which are cheap plastic. I like what I hear and I have no complaints about it. 
  
The us1800 replaced the us1641 and is more or less the same unit and drivers. I think they added more meters. I have used Tascam products since the Porta studio days and they have served me well. I will expect this unit will too. .
Having all those inputs is excellent as I can dedicate each one to a source.
Just the right size for live band tracking but you'll still want a mixer to use compression etc. The Tascam lacks channel inserts.  
 
Don't take reviews about gear from people who do not own or use it. The internet is full of both good and bad advice.

Michael Five


sweetwater is selling the saffire 6 (focusrite) for $130 on what they call a labor day sale.  Unless I needed more inputs that'd be my choice if money was the limiting reagent.  A lot of value for the gelt there.

I bought my Delta 1010 back when I had a small recording studio and needed that many channels (running through a board). 
I have no use for this rig anymore (and now have limited space for the board etc ) ...I just need a couple of preamps, headphone jack and a MIDI IO and would be willing to trade even if someone wants to buy me a Saffire 6 (or something similar).
The Delta is in immaculate condition...please PM me if interested...sorry if I'm OT. 

Catcus, thanks for that. I'm considering all options and vendors (expect maybe Behringer! ha ha), so your help is greatly appreciated. Under normal circumstances and projects, I'd only need 2 or 4 inputs at a time, but I can foresee times where I'd need more than that. Every piece of TASCAM gear I've ever owned has been solid. The problem is with so many good vendors out there, what do I end up choosing? :)

It's simple,
 If you know you will only ever use 2 inputs, then there are many brands and models to choose from on your $300 Budget.
 If you plan on needing more inputs someday, then there are only a few at that price point.

FYI -the us1800 has a list value of something like $800, It just seems to always be on sale for a lot less, therefore the huge bargain for what you get. Good luck.