New 3.2.8 Drivers Complete the Promise of the 400F 
by Bill Williams from Williamsburg, PA, July 2007
Music Background:  Recording Engineer

Everyone knows how great the sound is, but with this new driver release it becomes the unit it was always hyped to be. Very stable. Can't be beat for the price.

  Awesome! 
by Jacob from Vallejo, CA USA, March 2007
Music Background:  Keyboardist, Live Sound and Recording Engineer

I've been using the Onyx 400F for the past several months doing live recording and music playback on a Powerbook G4. The sound quality is amazing and I've had almost no problems with drivers or Tracktion. The Onyx mic pre's are as clean as advertised, and are many times better than those in my old mBox. The headphone outs are especially clean and hiss-free. Although there have been many complaints regarding a phantom power whine on the unit and driver problems, I've experienced none of these issues. The drivers (built into OSX) seem very stable and rarely have problems unless the computer sleeps with the interface connected. In fact, the drivers seem more stable and flexible than the drivers for my mBox were. My unit does have a slight whine that is only audible at ridiculous amounts of gain on the last mic input, and has never affected any of my recordings. It seems very solidly constructed of heavy gauge steel, and all the jacks have a firm feel. As a former Protools LE user, I was also worried about Tracktion's possible lack of features. However, Tracktion has proved to be an excellent recording program, recently flawlessly cranking out 8 tracks of 44.1kHz audio on my Powerbook while the same computer was running Powerpoint slides for a live show. The included Mackie plugins for Tracktion are also excellent, especially the Final Mix mastering plugin. I don't miss Protools as much as I thought I would. I've also used the built-in DSP mixer occasionally for some low-level signal splitting and mixing. I would strongly recommend the Onyx 400F firewire interface.

  the holy grail 
by b wayne from nyc, ny, February 2007
Music Background:  songwriter, multi instrumentalist

2/22/07
i have this product for about 6 months, and i felt you all should know that this is finally the interface that could be perfect. the sound is pro, the quality of the hardware is nuclear rock solid, and there are no negative issues or trade offs. if you like to play music with out your computer, important for me, it delivers crystal sound as a standalone. i have tried, sent back or sold multi pieces as inadequate, flimsy, just didn't work, or were too complicated. i know some people have had issues [check forums] , but i am not one of them. oh yeah, sweetwater is great, as well. no issues threr either

  Perfection! 
by Mike Bernier from Duluth Mn, December 2006
Music Background:  Producer, Engineer, Musician

I have this unit in front of a creation station and I am super happy with it! It performs just like it is supposed to and sounds great! I have had zero issues with it in over a year now. If you are considering purchasing this unit I can tell you that you will be making a solid decision. The value for the money is incredible. The only thing I regret is that I did not wait for the 12 channel version which I am looking at buying in the near future. Buy it!

  A Great Piece of Equipment 
by Kyle Krupinski from St. Louis MO 63122, July 2006
Music Background:  Bass Player, Recording Engineer and Live Sound Engineer

I purchased an Mbox 2 6 to 7 months prior to purchasing an Onyx 400F and I was amazed at the increase in quality. I have had little to no trouble using the 400F with Sonar 4 and I would greatly recommend a Sonar + Onyx unit. The day I bought the 400F I had a session with a musician new to the studio scene and he was amazed at the professional sound quality of the Onyx pres. I highly recommend to this for any system.

sonicphilosopher@gmail.com 
by Dave Bayro from Dave Bayro, April 2006

Outshines the rest on a PC or Intel-Mac. I just entered the Mac world so I can't attest to it's abilities with a Power PC Mac but I doubt it lacks with any system. I Previously owned a Tascam 1804 and had latency issues and constant dropouts when PCI cards never failed. Being a Seattlite, I went with the locally made 400F and love it. No issues on either system. It has great pre's and simple controlability.

Rock-solid professional studio quality at a good price 
by Rad from Boston, MA, April 2006

Exceptional high-quality preamps, indeed boutique-quality as Mackie says. Never seen or heard anything more transparent, more quiet and noiseless, with such transparent, clean, warm gain and a cleaner phone output. And let's get away from subjective stuff like "I like the sound." Here is the fact: on a spectrum analyzer, when you drive the gain all the way up (all 60 dB), the own preamp noise would be so low that it would barely even reach minus 105 dB!!! This means you get 105dB S/N ratio or better even with the weakest and most anemic mic which you could possibly get, with sensitivity like -60dBV/Pa. At gain levels like +40dB which are ample for most mics the preamp noise falls below detectable level (-130dB) even on a spectrum analysier. This just speaks for itself!
Now, It takes a while to get the firewire working with Windows XP SP2 without dropouts, but by now I have become firmly convinced that the problem is in the Windows OS. The latest driver version for the Mackie from their website works fine. I tested a bunch of other Firewire interfaces, like FireBox, Inspire1394, M-Audio FW Solo etc and they ALL have the same issue with Win XP, which is to say, Win XP has a problem with FW in general. Microsoft has recognized that there is a problem with WinXP SP2, and made a patch, but still when you play a DVD or do something completely unrelated to firewire, the drivers would just stop working. Why?! Ask Microsoft, or better, get a Mac. So yes on a PC you risk some problems with all firewire devices, not just the Mackie, so be careful.

wait!!! 
by Anonymous from wv, April 2006

i have had the 400f for a month now. using it with a pc and having driver issues. check out the mackie forums before you buy

the 400F is the truth! 
by FatMan from VA, March 2006

I had an aardvark 24/96 Pro audio card with breakout box before this. The unit did me well until the company went under and had no support. The control pannel was ok and the breakout box had no volume controls which rendered the headphones very quite. anyways, I needed more inputs and I had no idea how clean they would be.

The updated drivers did need to be downloaded from the website but other than that, this piece is more than excellent for the money.

nice swiss army knife 
by dan comerford from san diego, February 2006

A control mix, two headphone outs with separate volume nobs, and four front panel gain nobs. Clean...my other pre-amps sound better through the 400F than the darker
Delta 44. At least a 5 to 10% gain in high end detail
over the Delta 44 in just the line in.
Danger...no -10/+4 optional consumer line in; its all +4 pro level so you'll more pre's or to use up some
of your 4 Onyx pre's to get a good line level on
POD or Korg, ROland type keyboards.

so your POD and keyboards need a pre-amp to get enough
gain.

It just works. 
by Hans Haskell from Greenville area, SC, December 2005

Having waited for it for so long, I was excited to finally get my 400F. Setup was a breeze although I did have to download the software from the Mackie web site. For some reason the installation disc only has the Windows versions of the Control Panel and Tracktion. I still have not downloaded Tracktion, as I use Logic and Live already.

The sound is incredible, which is what I expected - you get a much more "expensive" sound than the price would suggest. My Studio Projects C3 sounds really nice and even external pre-amps run through the line input on the 400F sound better than they did through my previous converter.

If you need a great converter, nice clean preamps with tons of headroom and easy firewire setup for not much money, look no further. It feels and sounds like a much more expensive unit.

Excellent sound! 
by Toni from Bronx NY, December 2005

Ho ho ho! Santa did it again! This Mackie rocks. It's easy, simple and deliver just a clear and beautiful sound. Easy to mount or to take it with you, very practical and light weight. All you gonna need, is a compressor-limiter, Mackie will take care of the rest. Ideal for small budget studios,I will definitely recommend it. Mackie never disappointed me.
Regards Toni.

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