I generally try to follow the "if it ain't broke" philosophy with my studio setup at home, but I've been using an old Line 6 interface since 2007, so it was time for an upgrade. The unit looks great, and the knobs and switches are all crisp and don't feel cheap. It worked great after the driver installation, and feels like it drives both my headphones and studio monitors to a level of clarity my previous interface did not. I've seen some reviews saying they got lemons or had issues with the drivers, but I have not had any problems on either front so far on my laptop with Windows 10. I've plugged up my guitar, mics, e-drum kit, and midi controller and everything feels like it has low latency and is very responsive. The Focusrite Control software does take a little getting used to at first. It's only needed for changing a setting or routing audio differently, so for my general practice/demo recording setup where I just need audio inputs routed to monitors and headphones, I don't use it as much as I thought I would need to. This leads me to the other thing that is particularly cool about this unit: it is wall powered, so it does not require a USB connection to work. What this means for me is my laptop does not have to be in my studio if I want to switch the monitors on and jam out through the guitar, or if I want to use my studio as a de facto multimedia center for TV or a movie. To change settings, you just have to plug the unit back into the computer and load the control software. I can imagine this being a little clunky if I were going to be taking it to gigs, but for my purposes, it's really not time consuming or difficult. The only other thing I would mention is that installing *all* of the bundled software/free plugins takes a while. For me it's a sweet deal to get Addictive Keys, Softube plugins, and the Focusrite plugin for free since I use VSTs in nearly every recording, but even without them the unit by itself is well worth the money in my opinion.

DevastoTLW

Greensboro, NC