Saffire Pro 40 Vs Saffire Pro 26

brow_601

The 40: http://www.guitarampkeyboard.com/en/78896

and The 26: http://www.guitarampkeyboard.com/en/73395

Does anyone have any experience with either or both of these and what are your thoughts? I'm looking to buy a preamp soon and I was considering buying one of these, i'm just torn between which one as they seem fairly similar to me...

Or, could anyone recomend a decent interface with 8 mic pres for around the same price. The Saffire Pro 40 works out at about 403 euro without delivery on GAK, or 469 on Thomann. I could maybe stretch to 500 but it'd have to be worth it, as far as i'm aware the Saffire Pro 26 was near 700 at the start of the year but i'm not too sure about that.

Thanks for any help you guys can give...

tubedude

Hey, I own the saffire pro 26, you're talking about, and I've read a review of the pro 40 in the latest sound on sound, apparently it's fairly new out. But I have to say I'm a bit boggled, maybe I'm missing something, but there doesn't seem to be much difference between them at all,maybe its meant as a replacement to the 26?
Anyway, I much like the 26, preamps are very decent, prob the best you'd get in this price range, transparent and clean. You can get good gain levels without noise. Though the pro 40s are probably the same. Instrument i/p's on first two channels are pretty good. The front panels are the same except on the 26 you have a HPF on each channel. The GUI on the 26 is fairly easy to use and functional. The GUI in the pro 40 was said to be quite complicated to use. I know that the pro 40 cant be used as a stand alone device, and the pro 26 can. Like if you just want to use it as a mixer. But the 40 has this loopback feature on the channels which is supposed to be handy for sampling, though not quite sure how it works. I prefer the aesthetics of the pro 26.
Overall not a whole lot different, except pro 26 is standalone. Pro 40 has interesting loopback thing. I would say get one of these two over anything else definetly. They would both be good. Though if mine was lost, I'd probably go for the 26 again. But you wouldn't go wrong with either, both good value.

brow_601

Cheers for that, i've been reading up on it and I think it said somewhere that they've stopped producing the 26, it's not available on thomann anymore, but I could probably still get it on GAK. I found this not too long after I started the thread.
I think I'll definitely get one of these, leaning towards the 40 at the moment...

danjokill

I use the 26i/o as my main card. It's very good. The 16 Channels of ADAT are what set this apart.

The only issue i had was using it with vista ...... i went back to XP but for other reasons than the card. I was getting connection issues with the firewire with vista. This i think may have been a build issue with my PC so focusrite are not to blame here.

The 16 Channels of ADAT is a real plus when you are track a kit you aren't stuck for inputs.

The 8 focusrite peramps are good but not great. They are a little cold for my taste.

tubedude

Yeah the extra adat channels are a plus. I'm using it with OSX, and it did'nt give any problems.
That's a handy chart alright, though I'm not sure if the all the new features they added make up for what they took away, like the hardware phantom power switch, and the hardware input metering would have been great if they hadn't taken away the standalone capabilities. In the 26 you could not use phantom power in standalone, coz there was no hardware switch. In the 40 its more of a luxury feature, that you don't really need.
And it puts an 'X' in the 26 list beside active monitor pad, though it does have an active monitor pad, but I don't think it's 20dB, it's like 10 or something i think.

brow_601

If it doesn't have standalone capabilities does that mean it doesn't work without the software?

tubedude

Pretty much yeah, it doesn't work unless it's connected to a computer. In standalone on the 26, as in when it's not connected to a computer, you can power the thing by a PSU adaptor. Like if you have a hardware recorder with only line inputs, you can use the mic preamps on the 26 and feed the outputs into it, or you can use it as a mixer, where the inputs are fed to stereo outs. There are two standalone modes, mixing and tracking, you have to select which one in the GUI, connected to the computer before you use either one.

Yeah and it's a -18dB monitor pad on the 26, in case you cared.

brow_601

Ah right, cheers tubedude you've been very helpful. I'm leaning more so towards the 26.