Aardvark

I paid 500 bucks at Musicians Friend. The preamp is great. It has phantom power which is a plus. There is very little latency with my cheap midi keyboard. This unit works well with Cubase and Fuity Loops, I never used it with anything else. Records great. It's a bit pricey and doesn't have an effects send. Aardark is out of business now so you can't get a warranty or tech support. But the drivers are easy to find on the net. The PCI card is shielded and seems rock solid. The breakout box is a little light and seems flimsy (some of the parts are plastic), but I have knocked it off of my desk several times and it has had no ill effect on the unit so far. This is a great unit and has dropped in price since they went out of business, I recommend picking one up on ebay form a reputable source...like I said there is no longer a warranty, but I've never needed mine. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I bought this new and it came with Cakewalk #9. I never got the thing to record. I called Aardvark and they suggested I buy the upgrade which was SONAR 2.0. I paid $725.00 new. Nothing It doesn't work, it emits a hum and Aardvark tells you they'll call you back because they're busy, go mow the lawn or something. They never called back so 2 hours later I phoned them and they were utterly useless! I was immediately disappointed that the Q10 which is rackmountable has a plastic facade. Buy a DAW From Korg,Yamaha for about the same money and you don't have to worry about compatability of software, figuring out software/hardware clashes etc. Deeply disapointed with Aardvark. Here's a case where I will say "DON"T BUY AMERICAN!" This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Well, i don't know where to start ;-) the Q10's 'breakout box' features 8 flexible inputs (4 of them feature phantom power and inserts), 1 MIDI I/O, 8 analog outs (balanced 1/4" jack), 2 monitor outs, S/PDIF I/O, a clock I/O, and a headphone output. on the software side,you get one of the main pro's of the Q10: its software mixer enables you to work completely without a hardware mixer. IMHO this is one of the best pieces of audiogear on the market, with a really high 'bang for your buck'-factor. UTILIZATION The Q10's preamps are really transparent and clear, without becoming too overly 'clean'.thanks to the really extreme possibility in gain (up to 75 dB), you always can get a signal that's loud enough... Aardvark is known for its audio clocks, and it shows: never had any jitter problems, and extreme highs and lows sound pretty tight. i like its sound better than that of digi or motu systems in the same price category, it has just that little extra 'character'. i only give the Q10 a 9 for sound, 'cause 10 would be for some real good 2" tape machines... GETTING STARTED Installation is a breeze, in 10 mins you're up and running. the driver's really stable, i've been using it for 18 months and some 200 songs now and i never had any crashes on that. one of the great things about the Q10 are the flexible inputs: you can plug XLR as well as 1/4" jacks in all 8 of them. as said above, the first 4 of them feature phantom power and inserts (on the back of the box). inputs 7 and 8 are switchable to D.I.-input, ideal for guitar/bass. the software mixer is really easy to use: looks just like a real one :-) (except there's no eq or aux section, of course). with a 90 dB reach of gain, you can record almost any input source you want. here i found one little flaw, though: gain settings can only altered by 'virtually turning' the really small gain knobs on the softwaremixer, it is not possible to enter a gain level by typing it. but hey, it works just fine. monitoring is a breeze, too: you can even pan input signals in the monitormix. routing the outputs is simple thanks to the panel designed for it: it shows a photo of the outputs on the box, with a drop-down menu next to each one, where you can choose whatever you want to be routed through that output. you can also save "snapshots" of the entire interface, so you can easily recall all settings to one previously used. on the 'advanced' panel you can set buffer sizes etc. on my P4 (2 gHz, 1 Mb internal memory), i get a latency of 4 ms out of it, which i am forced to increase when running heavy projects. OVERALL OPINION As said above, it's been heavily (ab)used for the last 1,5 year, and it still looks and works like when it came out of the box. the breakout box is really sturdy, and the circuitry itself is shielded on the PCI card. i think it will last a while... as you could have guessed, it's my baby :-). it always works, it always sounds good and 'accurate', and you can plug anything in it LOL (Written by Unknown on FutureProducers.com 3, 2004))