M-Audio FireWire 18/14 reviews?

[ANTMUZ]

Does anyone here use the FireWire 18/14 on their current Mac setup (ideally an intel Mac Pro on 10.4.9)?

I've heard a few people say the device keeps on crashing after a few minutes and sound keeps dropping - all this has been since 10.4.6. I want to use the interface mostly for vocal recording.

Any thoughts on its stability?

[zygo]

I have been using the FW1814 for nearly 2 years originally on a Powerbook G4 (Pro Tools M-powered, Logic etc) and always worked fine. No problems at all as long as you followed the turn on/off procedures correctly.

I bought a Mac Pro about a month ago to run the same setup and it came with 10.4.9 pre-installed and there was no way of going back to 10.4.8 or using combo updates(for Pro Tools). Since PT isn't supporting 10.4.9 I experienced lots of kernal panics (restart crash). I switched back to using logic and had some occassional kernal panics after quiting my sessions.

These problems, both Logic and Pro Tools have been resolved with the latest OSX updates-everything's running smoothly in that sense now.

One thing that is annoying using the FW1814 on my Mac Pro is that it takes AGES to see the FW device when booting up-it feels like a good minute or two.

[zygo]

If the issues you've heard of are recording related only, then I can only think of one proper recording(vocals) session I have used it for and it performed fine-that was on my Powerbook 10.4.8.

Also worth noting: apparently if you don't follow the turn on/off procedures you risk frying your FW ports.

Out of interest, what software are you using?

[ANTMUZ]

If the issues you've heard of are recording related only, then I can only think of one proper recording(vocals) session I have used it for and it performed fine-that was on my Powerbook 10.4.8.

Also worth noting: apparently if you don't follow the turn on/off procedures you risk frying your FW ports.

Out of interest, what software are you using?

I'm using Logic Pro. I've just heard a few things about M-Audio not updating drivers quickly. But maybe that was just an irate customer. I'm thinking now though that I may spend a bit more money and go with a MOTU UltraLite, it does what I need and they seem Apple friendly.