 Best Sellers
| | |  | |  | | | Alesis IO|26 | | SKU:
| | In Stock | | Availability:
Usually ships in 1-2 business days | | | Great sounding mic pre's, full 24-bit 192K performance, and a blazing fast FireWire interface set the alesis IO-26 apart from the competition. The IO-26 features 8 ultra high quality Mic/line inputs with Phantom power and inserts on each channel, MIDI in and out, an impedance corrected input on channels one and two (for guitars and basses), and much more! Free Headphones with purchase (a 43 value) | | | |
List Price:
| $599.00 | |
Our Price:
| $353.95 | |
You Save:
| $245.05 (41%)
|
| | |
|
| | Product Details | | Product Length: | 8.0 inches | | Product Width: | 12.2 inches | | Product Height: | 2.9 inches | | Product Weight: | 5.0 pounds | | Package Length: | 16.4 inches | | Package Width: | 9.1 inches | | Package Height: | 4.1 inches | | Package Weight: | 7.35 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 6 reviews |
| |
| | Features | 24Bit/192kHz capability for ultra highquality recording - pro studio software includedFlexible, routable Hardware Direct Monitoring with 2 discrete stereo headphone outputs16 channels of ADAT input, 16 Channels of MIDI I/O, stereo S/PDIF digital input, stereo turntable input8-High Definition Mic/Line Preamps with switchable 48V Phantom for each pair - (2 switchable highimp inputs for direct guitar and bass recording)Bus or adapter powered with professional multi-track studio recording software included (Windows and Mac compatible)
| |
| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Software renders XP SP3 unbootable Nov 17, 2008
If it wasn't bad enough that the headphone jacks on this unit crackled coming straight out of the box, the software was slow to install and caused a four-week old installation of Win XP Pro with SP3 to crash and fail to reboot. After completing a system restore in safe mode and installing the Alesis software again, the problem repeated.
 A Favorable Review of the Alesis IO|26 Oct 31, 2008
I am an avid amateur recordist and musician. Recently I decided to upgrade from my Garageband/USB microphone setup, and I wanted an audio interface around which I could build the rest of my studio. I spent a lot of time reading reviews and discussions of the IO26 before I bought it, and in the end I decided it was the best value for my money. Here are the main things that attracted me to it:
1. 8 simultaneous inputs. This is handy when recording drum kits or full bands. Firewire means everything is fast, and you can chain another interface to it with a "lightpipe" - 16 channels! It's wonderful.
2. High-quality mic preamps on all the channels. Even people critical of other aspects of this machine have said its preamps are clean and transparent, and alone might even be worth the price. They sound great to me.
3. No-latency monitoring. Digital recording tends to involve a lag when listening to yourself live, as the sound has to go into the computer, bounce around, and then come back out. Alesis surely isn't the first company to figure out a way around this, but they've implemented their solution in an intuitive and practical way, and given you some freedom as to where the outputs go, which is nice.
4. Portability. It's cool to be able to put it (carefully) into my backpack, take it across town to a church, a cave, or a practice space, whip it out, and start recording eight simultaneous tracks of high-quality digital audio.
I don't want to be an Alesis apologist, but here are my views on some issues others have brought up:
1. "The drivers are sketchy and the software doesn't work right." I've never run into this, but then again I made sure to read the manual before plugging the IO26 into anything. :) There are numerous online forums where people like to discuss their technical problems - if you have a funky, nonconformist computer, it'd be good to browse those before you buy. As of a month or two ago, Alesis had a new Mac OS 10.5 driver up on their website: I use a 2.4 Ghz MacBook with 2Gb of memory and everything is happy.
2. "Quality control, wires being disconnected, Alesis people are jerks, etc." Likewise, no hardware/technical problems so far on my end (knock on wood). The IO26 that I bought is well-designed, solidly constructed, and made of quality materials. If it had had a problem out of the box, I would have contacted the vendor first for a replacement, then made a claim to Alesis under the manufacturer's warranty.
3. "Cubase LE4 is basically a glorified promo for Steinberg's more expensive audio software." Yes: this is true. Cubase is neat software, but LE4 only allows 8 inputs to be recorded simultaneously, has no Rewire connectivity (if you know what this is you will be annoyed), has limited VST functionality, absolutely no technical customer support from Steinberg, and probably some other absurd crimes against the consumer that I'm forgetting to mention. A while ago I got tired of griping about LE4 and switched over to Logic 8, cross-platform compatibility be danged. But it is free.
My personal complaint about the Alesis IO26 has to do with two of the knobs on the face of the unit: they are "infinite" and thus spin around forever without stopping (unlike the channel gain knobs which have a minimum/maximum). Therefore it's impossible to tell whether you're turned all the way up or all the way down. Since I like to play it safe and zero everything out when I turn my gear on or off, this bothers me. I withdraw a star!
In a nutshell, though, I'm happy with the IO26, its features suit me just fine, and I think it was worth the money. Thank you for reading my review.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Outstanding interface Dec 12, 2007
We have been using the Alesis iO|26 with an iMac 24" 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with outstanding results. The system can record multi track with no distortion. As of this writing, the OSX 10.5 driver is still in beta testing but the unit works supurbly with OSX 10.4.11.
We are recording with LOGIC STUDIO (Logic Pro 8).
It's a good unit, now Oct 29, 2007
I deleted my initial review. Back in Oct 07, when I bought it, the current drivers were not working with my Macbook Pro laptop with Intel Core 2 Duo processor. There were many glitches and I had to put older Alesis drivers on to get the unit to get levels. So, I gave the IO/26 1 star.
As an other reviewer pointed out, you only can record 4 tracks simultaneously with the software provided. I don't know if Steinburg still has the deal, but they were giving 50% off on Cubase and Cubase Studio 4 if you bought this. Now I consider this unit excellent for the $. I still have to take a star away for all the initial frustration I went through. I have recorded 4 tracks simultaneous 24 bit 88.2 with no drop outs or problems.
Do not use the bus to power it and you will have less problems.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Good Features and Value - Needs Better Quality Control Aug 09, 2007
Before I bought this, I read the previous review in which the user had to open up the unit and reconnect a disconnected cable. I figured that was just a random occurrence. Well, amazingly enough, I had to do the same thing. In my case, it was the headphone outputs that weren't working. After driving myself crazy trying to get some sound in my headphones, I remembered reading the other review and figured it was worth a try. I had to unscrew about 20 little screws and then when I opened it up, there it was - a disconnected cable. I think Alesis really needs to get their act together on this. I'm giving the product 3 stars because I like the features and it's priced well, but these quality issues are really unacceptable. I think it will probably work out OK for me, but be aware of what you may be getting yourself into.
| |
| |
| |  | |  |
|
| You may also like ...
|
