Back in January, at the Winter NAMM Show, Alesis announced two new 24-bit/192kHz FireWire interfaces. But then months went by and we started wondering if indeed we’d imagined the whole thing. Wow, were we relieved when Alesis informed us that the iO|26 and iO|14 were actually starting to ship. The reason for the delay? It’s not official, but we suspect Alesis wouldn’t release these interfaces until they were absolutely perfect. Both interfaces have specs that guarantee pristine recordings, as well as flexible, routable Hardware Direct Monitoring via the HDM Control panel software. Both interfaces are flexible and highly expandable. The iO|26 ($599 MSRP) comes with eight analog mic/line inputs which can be expanded to 24 inputs using two ADAT Lightpipe inputs. The iO|14 ($499 MSRP) comes with four analog inputs, expandable to 14 (with one ADAT input). Also included on the iO|26 are MIDI I/O and S/PDIF I/O, line inserts in every analog input, phantom power, two switchable guitar level inputs, and a switchable phono preamp input for recording from a turntable. Other features include:
- Compatibility with Macs, PCs and most DAW software.
- Both include DICE II JET Jitter Elimination Technology.
- Both interfaces are equipped with Cirrus converters for maximum dynamic range.
- Both have high-def transformerless microphone preamps with Neutrik connectors.
- Both units ship with a copy of Steinberg’s Cubase LE workstation software.
