Focusrite AMS-CLARETT-8PRE

I'm loving this interface. Excellent sound that you expect from Focusrite. The Focusrite Control center application is easy enough to understand (was able to navigate my way through it without any tutorials) for setting up different mixes to different outputs. I absolutely love the Air setting for the preamps (I'm worried about how much I love them. I have to force myself turn them off when recording things other than vocals because it really does make them shine). My ONLY complaint with this is... the Focusrite Control center application likes to crash on me. I had a bit of a heart attack awhile ago when audio completely dropped while I was listening to music: the meters weren't jumping on the interface or anything. Turns out the focusrite application had crashed and the settings reverted back to a default empty state where nothing is outputted out of the mains (or any output for that matter). This happens seemingly randomly, but it doesn't happen enough to convince me to make this a 4 star review. Focusrite's customer support was quick to reply on the matter and were easy to work with.UPDATE #1: The ADAT ports on the back are extremely flimsy. Both optical port shutter doors broke. I'm trying to decide if I want to tape the optic cables in place or if I want to be inconvenienced by sending the whole unit back.

Very happy with this purchase. Headphone amp is powerful. preamps sound good. Air mode, really is a great option - nice on acoustic guitar. I am using the optical SPDIF from a line 6 device and that works great. The IOS and Mac apps are well done. All the additional free plugins are wonderful. Latency is very low but could be better. Never had any driver related problems so far - running on a MacBook Pro. It would have been 5 stars if there was more input gain.

This could turn out to be the best investment in my studio. Amazing sound card. The Thunderbolt connection offers close to zero latency, and the signal transferred to the computer is perfect. I have set up this piece of gear to best suit my studio needs, and it is perfectly responding: a Roland electronic drum connected to the USB port, a Korg Arranger keyboard connected to the MIDI input and output, and all instruments connected to the various other inputs of the card. Plus, I connected a Behringer Ultragain Digital ADA 2800 mic pre-amp to get more inputs, and I distribute the sounds through the outputs of the gear, connected to a Samson C studio controller. Part of the sound is routed to the control room monitors, part to an amplifier feeding the live room. I have diverted one headphone output to an ART headphone amplifier, and I can distribute headphone signal to 6 headphones located in the vocal booth, the control room and the live room. I am sure there is a better setup for this card, but this one is perfect for my studio. No more need to plug and unplug devices while processing with my recording.

This review is specifically related to Windows 10 and Thunderbolt CompatibilityMy System: Intel NUC Skull Canyon... USB C "Thunderbolt 3 Compatible" interface.As of this writing the software available for Windows in it's beta version (not mentioned in the Amazon description). When you browse Focusrite's website they also state Windows compatibility. After some digging the beta software doesn't explicitly support Thunderbolt. The following is a quote from Focusrite:"At launch, the Clarett Windows driver will NOT be officially supported with Thunderbolt 3 connections via an adapter. We are aware of some problems that can occur when using such a setup including glitchy audio and the device not being recognised on some systems.This is not to say that the Clarett range will definitively not work with this type of connection, however at present since we're aware of problems we would recommend using a Thunderbolt 1 or Thunderbolt 2 connection if at all possible.We are looking to add full Thunderbolt 3 support in future updates to the driver."I tried several Adapters wasn't able to get it to recognize the interface.One star because the only way you can connect is through Thunderbolt 3 (mini DP) and it's not yet fully supported on Windows

Missing power supply

I remember being in the infancy of my home-studio days drooling over the early versions of the Focusrite interface family in TapeOp, and I was honestly incredibly excited to get to bring one of these into a young recording artist's studio and produce for him on it. The interface is incredibly versitile, allowing direct monitoring over 4 outputs and a headphone jack which follows a stereo output of lineout 3-4. The front of the quite hefty half/rack sized interface has combo xlr/1/4" inputs with gain knobs surrounded by clip indicator leds. SO MUCH HEADROOM, and the air effect has proven to be vital in overcoming a less than ideal vocal booth. I run this with a Rode N1A trough LogicProX, and with direct and daw monitoring existing with absolutely NO audible latency, this interface has improved my productivity ten-fold. Easy set up, classic look, not lacking any customization - could not be happier

Excellent sonic fidelity, solidly built, gets quite warm when running. I've yet to get it working well with my brand new Macbook Pro and Ableton Live 9.0. Yet to determine if issue is more with Ableton eating up CPU. What I can say is that pops and clicks were not often present when I was using my Apogee Duet with Ableton. Spent many hours troubleshooting. Only way I'm using it now is by constantly adjusting sample rate and buffer size and using hardly any plugins while tracking. Once tracking is done I make the buffer size huge which in turn causes major latency. A bit bummed out and back and forth with tech support.Ableton Live 9 users should be cautious before buying.