Used the Quantum 2626 yesterday for a gig for the very first time and have to say it was rock solid, reliable and easy to setup. I downloaded the Universal control app and ran my firmware updates. Ran my entire MainStage live rig for my band with no issues on a base Mac mini m4, no hiccups, no drop outs just rock solid reliability. I would like to thank my rep , Cory Medina for always taking care of me and any questions that I have. Looking forward to using this in my rig moving forward!

Pros: Latency on monitoring is superior to all the USB interfaces I've tried. I have yet to try any USB3 interfaces, but this definitely blows any USB2 interface away. I'm able to actually play drums through my DAW, with VST compression/effects applied and direct monitor it with acceptable latency. If I'm not running much on my project I can get away with 64 buffer/block size at 48000hz and it's 1.6ms latency through Reaper. Bigger projects I have to use 128 which gives 3ms latency and still totally playable on drums. For guitar I don't notice it at all and usually run 128.

Plenty of input/outputs and optical/spdif options. I'm able to easily combine my other interfaces with it via optical cables and having the spdif was a bonus to utilize the spdif of my Axe FX III. This somewhat makes up for the fact that I NEED all of those optical inputs since it doesn't work with AVB and that's how I pipe in AVB from another interface, more on that in the cons.

Cons: No direct monitoring. You have to use this with a DAW in order to get anything out of the outputs.

You really can't do much with it compared to other Presonus devices with Universal Control. It's really disappointing that this doesn't support AVB and I'm tempted to drop it to 3 stars because of that. I ended up buying a MOTU 112D to AVB with my StudioLive 32SX, it's sad that I have to buy a competing brand's product to utilize a feature of another Presonus product.

Other thoughts:
I see quite a few bad reviews on here about it dying on them and noisy preamps and that kind of thing. I have not experienced this. I purchased mine used and it's worked totally fine for 6 months now. I can say that thunderbolt seems to be finicky and some of that comes down to your system settings (people saying they have to restart their PC and it won't hot plug). Mine definitely does, but I have had issues with my thunderbolt controller itself deciding not to work for anything plugged into them, so maybe they are blaming the product when it's their tb controller.

I don't know what to make of Presonus at this point since Fender bought them out. This might be the last good interface they made, I don't know if I'd go with one of their USB3 options.

My only issue is the power supply is loose so it falls out and shuts off if we move anything.

Owned for 3 years, used extensively over various daw's including Protools 11, cubase 10.5, abelton but I've unfortunately had too many small issues that make this a hard one to recommend. (Owned Focusrite 2i2, Zoom Tac-8, Tac-2, Maudio, digi 003.) so I do have some experience with different audio interfaces but this one has been the most quirky.

- (2) main problems.
1. Noisy preamps with/scratchy gain knobs (No matter what buffer size or sample rate. 11700k, 64gb 4200mhz, 4tb ssd.) These pots are terrible sounding. ****Granted I did purchase a demo interface***** and the problem only occured after the first year of owning the unit.**** Using a Guitar direct into the interface gives me a pretty nasty artifact like sounding upper mid/high end register that only gets worse when introducing higher gain amp sims. Maybe I got a bum unit but it's somewhat difficult getting a crystal clear signal. (tried on multiple friends pcs, used various Hum eliminators, purchasing new Ac power supply units, power conditioners, etc. That said, it might be my particular unit take this with a grain of salt.
2. If the Quantum loses connection/gets unplugged for any reason, I have to power cycle to get the unit to operate again.. Not having a hot plug device in a pinch is a pretty hard pill to swallow, especially if you're attempting paid gigs.. I've done about every Bios setting known to man, every windows update, driver update, windows settings etc. I have to restart my entire pc to get this unit to connect again. I have multiple thunderbolt capable pc's and this is an issue on all of them.
3. Customer service man, I've been following the same presonus forum waiting for a response and multiple people in the forum are also kinda like wtf..
For the last reason alone I can recommend their stuff. Budget 8 input thunderbolt interface not worth the trouble

I bought this interface right after it came out and I loved it. 8 pre-amps across the front that sounded very good for the price, solid build, Firewire connection, easy to use-- really a great value! Then one day, it just stopped working. I was tracking drums and went upstairs for a bite to eat, leaving the interface on and the project up. When I came back downstairs, I woke the computer up and tried to listen back to what I'd recorded... No audio playback, and I eventually realized it was no longer recording either. The interface was recognized by the computer and Logic. I could select it as an input and/or output device. The blue light on the front of the interface indicating FireWire connection was lit blue... But there was no input or output. It would no longer record or playback. I spent dozens of hours online trying to fix it. OS reversions, firmware and software updates, removals, re-installs, different cables, different processes, contacted PreSonus, everything... The internet is full of others reporting this or similar issues that render it suddenly useless, including the reviews here. It's a great product until it inexplicably stops working.

I just hooked up my second Quantum 2626. I bought my first in 2020 during covid lock downs, I use it daily, some days for several hours in a row.
I bought it because it has 8 mic pre's on the front, no climbing behind the rack, but now, I have my outboard hardware hooked up and needed more I/O. I could have bought a 8 channel mic pre, but I like the sound of the 2626 pre's and I really like the thunderbolt 3 connection, which gives me very very low latency. I definitely recommend the Persons Quantum 2626.

I am a little over a year in with this unit and I have to say I have consistently been very disappointed in it. To start, this unit is being hyped as high end studio gear and doesn't even have basic functions of a low end unit like loop back recording or direct monitoring. The thunderbolt port makes zero difference, it is in no way any better than my scarlet solo. The unit regularly refuses to connect to my PC on startup and almost always requires a restart to work properly. Don't waste your money on this junk. I can't wait to replace it and I won't be buying another presonus for sure!

I will NEVER trust any products from Presonus ever again after my Quantum 2626 died shortly after the 1 year warranty expired and their authorized service took almost a year to look at it and tell me it was a $500 repair

My names is Jimmy K.
I have about 49 years recording experience. One thing that I have learned is that I need a product that I purchase to consistently work.
The Presonus 2626 falls into this category for sure. I've had nearly a year to use. 2626 from Presonus. My experience is that it has been way more than what I expected. The sound quality when recording is superb. The functionality of the interface is incredible whether I'm recording a single instrument or multiple instruments the interface always delivers the quality of product is beyond what I could hope for I know they're higher-quality interfaces out there but at $ I feel that this cannot be touched. I have eight inputs if I need more I'll buy another one . thank thank you persona for making such an incredible quality product and an affordable price point thank you, Nate Hutson At Sweetwater, you're the best thank you for always caring for my needs and making sure that I'm getting the best product designed for my workflow thank you Sweetwater you rock as always.

Just unboxed the unit. Why does Presonus use such a cheap, flimsy connections for power supply? It's already moving, shorting, and shutting off the unit. I could see the weakest link the second I unboxed it. This power connector makes it very doubtful I will ever try and record remote/live. And that's a bummer 'cause it's a decent enough interface. It's hardly road worthy, though.

We purchased a Presonus 2626 in 2020 and it has been in use continuously since.The i/o compliment of 8 uncolored high headroom preamps with SPDIF and optical digital routing and thru the box low latency monitoring is solid and functional. While not quite a do it all "swiss army" box its professional synchronization locks tight with the other tools in our studio.
Straight up piece of gear.
Kudos Presonus. EJL

I have two Quantum 2626 set up as aggregate device on an iMac27 (2020) (Intel), connected to two Ultragain Digital ADA8200 (one could connect up to four, two on each Quantum). Works flawlessly, stable, no glitches, no latency. With 32 ins, I can have all synths connected at all time, without the need for a patch bay. Everything is controlled from within the DAW. I don't think there is a similar solution at this price. The first Quantum I had now for 3+ years, the second I got recently (came with Studio One Pro). Yes, on/off button is in the back (silly) but I turn them on and off through a power conditioner, so a non-issue for me. And yes, the 2626 only works with a DAW. Don't buy it if that is not your intent. I also like having the audio ins on the front for ease of access. Overall, highly recommended.

I've had mine for 11 months and now it's a brick. The lights on the interface say it's connected to my iMac. The included Universal Control software says it's connected. The level lights on the inputs show they are receiving signals, but no audio comes out of the mains or the headphone jacks. Support is only via email and it's very sloooowwww. Expect no advice for three days or more after you create a support ticket and after each reply that the previous suggestion did not work. If you want to understand what it's like to own this product read the support forums. You'll find many frustrated customers who can't get their Quantum 2626 interfaces working again. Look at the download page for the Universal Control software that is necessary to run this interface - that needs a computer connection for everything. There is no indication that the software supports the latest MacOS - Sonoma. Some people praise this product because it's a very low-cost interface with Thunderbolt 3. It's not a bargain if it doesn't work.

If you're a Linux user, I'd advise against considering the PreSonus Quantum 2626. Despite successfully getting Linux to recognize and authorize this Thunderbolt device, my efforts were futile as the unit persistently displayed a flashing blue light, rendering it incapable of producing any audio.

When I reached out to PreSonus customer support for assistance, they informed me that Linux is not officially supported. The absence of Linux support and the limited assistance from customer support have significantly devalued the PreSonus Quantum 2626 in my eyes. It's disheartening to invest in a professional audio interface only to face obstacles when attempting to use it on a widely adopted and adaptable operating system like Linux.

The I/O slots are out of order in Studio One, and the closest I've gotten to getting them right is getting the inputs in order, but the outputs are still not right. Every time I turn it on, I have to hit "rescan network" or the I/O order gets completely rearranged. The volume knob already crackles, and I haven't had very long. The outputs occasionally don't work when I first load everything so I have to close out of Studio One, turn off the interface, and start the whole process over. I wasn't expecting a top tier Thunderbolt interface at this price point, but being PreSonus, I was expecting it to function as well as my ultra basic Studio 6|8 USB interface. I'm extremely disappointed. Save your money and get something else.

Used this with an M1 Macbook for about a year. After a couple months I went to plug it back in again and it will not be recognized by the computer. I contacted support and after just under 2 months and 3 tickets closed without my consent, they admitted there was an issue with the interface, but since it was out of warranty, there was nothing they could do to help.
I guess I should have learned my lesson after my Firestudio died but I will not be purchasing another product from Presonus again.

I purchased the Quantum 2626 in June of 2021, so after almost 2 years of ownership, I thought I'd share a review. A HUGE thank you to Louis Sawyer, my Sweetwater rep, who recommended this interface 2 years ago. I was on the fence about it. I had an old FireStudio Project and had a lot of issues with it, but Louis' recommendations are always spot on, and I trust him. I think whether this interface is right for some people really depends on the setup. An old ProTools user, (going from an old PC and ProTools 8 and an Eleven Rack), I wanted (needed) to upgrade my home setup.

To preface, I'm now a pretty simple setup, and I'm usually working on demos or other projects, podcasts, videos, etc, and on the music side, at the most I'll have a few people in the room. I am in no way running any kind of complicated studio from home.

My "music computer" is a late 2015 27" iMac with upgraded 32GM of RAM, still running Intel, so I was not at the silicon level yet. I told Louis I was interested in switching to Studio One Professional for home use. Because of my desk and room setup in my home studio, I'm limited, and I needed inputs in the front of the interface. I am also only recording into the DAW most of the time. I did mention to Louis I might upgrade to a better laptop/computer in the future.

For me, and for my setup, for 2 years, the Quantum 2626 has worked to perfection, flawlessly. I haven't had a single glitch, no issues with software or firmware, and the 2626 is blazing fast on a Thunderbolt 2. No drops, no latency issues. I've personally never had to call Presonus support. The XMAX preamps are great, though I am partial to my Focusrite ISA One and Focusrite ISA Two, depending on the application. But if you need the XMAX preamps, they get the job done. I run preamps into the 2626 for acoustic instruments, and I run my Helix into the 2626. I always use power conditioners, so I don't mind that the power switch is in the back for the Quantum. I have it plugged into a Furman M-8LX with that power switch in the front. I even leave the Furman and Quantum on most of the time (and when the computer is asleep), and no issues there either.

The idea behind this purchase was that if I upgraded to a better laptop or computer in the future, the 2626 would have the capability to handle Thunderbolt 3. I haven't done that yet because everything has worked so perfectly (and still does). But so far it looks like I'll enjoy this interface for many more years, even in switching to a Thunderbolt 3 later on.

I am on an older iMac, and I am running Studio One Professional, so my setup may be better aligned for the Quantum 2626, but it's been money very well spent. The 2626 might work better for some setups than others, so I would only say talk to your Sweetwater Rep about whether it works for your setup. It works fantastic on mine, and for anyone with similar setups, I would highly recommend the Quantum 2626. It has been excellent for 2 years straight.

I have had this for about 2 years. When I first got it, they had no driver for M1 Silicon. I bought a different interface for the time being. I keep trying it again whenever a new software update comes out but it has never worked. It is not able to download its firmware. Life is too short to spend time trying to hack these things to make them work. It's 2023 and they should work right out of the gate - others do, so why doesn't this one? Total waste of money.

The PreSonus Quantum 2626 is so close to being the perfect computer audio interface, it hurts! I had to rate the 2626 4.5 Stars, versus the full 5 Stars, since it is not equipped with recallable XMAX preamplifier circuitry as its' bigger-brethren, the Quantum, is, or its' predecessor, the Quantum 2, was.

Also missing, but not of as much consequence, is individually assignable 48V phantom-power. Phantom-power is assignable via bank control switches. Input channels 1 through 4 are on one bank phantom-power circuit and input channels 5 through 8 are on the other bank phantom-power circuit.

Overall, this lack of digital control over the XMAX preamps and phantom power circuitry being available via the DAW amounts to lower manufacturing costs and a lower cost to the consumer. I feel these were good design choices in weighing pros and cons between cost and capability on behalf of PreSonus.

The Quantum 2626 Thunderbolt 3 interface is BLAZING fast. My input latency is ~ 0.71 milliseconds and my output latency is ~ 0.86 milliseconds at 192.kHz – with a fifteen-foot Thunderbolt 3 cable! My 2626 is rack-mounted across my studio space and my audio workstation is situated along the opposite wall, hence the length.

The 2626 seems as if it were designed with longevity in mind. Metal chassis. Metal knobs. Solid construction. Ultimately, I'm terribly satisfied with my purchase of the PreSonus Quantum 2626. The price/performance ratio can't be beaten.

This is a great interface! There is no audible latency that I can hear when playing instrument plug-ins when working on a project or in the "Show Page" in Studio One Software... I finally used this as a backing track player for live shows using the Studio One "Show Page". it went very well and I was also monitoring our stage mix thru the interface as well. it handled everything, I do not recommend using it this way for the sake of not relying on it solely, but it did work! It ran a stereo backing track to output 1 & 2, 4 mono tracks to outputs 3-6, and I sent outputs 7 & 8 to my headphone amplifier to monitor our stage sound.
I ran into an issue where the sound engineer was not receiving signal from outputs 3-6. The issue is that "Line Outs 1 & 2" are the same as "Main Out L&R" so all channels you are running will get sent out to Line Outs 1 & 2 automatically. That was kinda frustrating because I wanted the sound engineer to have separate channels and full control of the backing tracks.
So the inputs that were routed channels 3-6 had to be set up "Pre-fader" to be able to output sound to "Line Outs 3-6". I'm no expert but I feel like that Line Outs 1 & 2 should remain separate from the Main Out because now you only have 6 outputs unless you do the work around like I did by sending inputs "pre-fader" to the outputs.
This was my experience using this interface and also the "Show Page" in Studio One. It is a great interface and the low latency of this makes it a great tool for running backing tracks and monitoring, my only gripe with it was the 8 Line Outs is kinda misleading. It's basically 6 Line Outs with annoying extra work to get 2 more Line Outs. If that is just standard practice then please disragard my complaint about it.

this audio interface is a piece of junk, it s drivers have never worked well, after having it for 2 years it has done nothing but fail on a mac mini m1

I have this unit now for more than three years and it is serving me really well. It is connected to an iMac 27 and using Studio One. I also have two Behringer ADAT units connected to it for a total of 24 audio ins plus send/return. All works flawlessly. To be sure, it needs to run through the DAW--that is what it is designed for (Studio One in my case, but I used Logic as well). I have multiple synths attached to it. The one MIDI connection was useful when I had an old Korg synth connected. Once caveat perhaps: The on/off button is on the back. I run this unit through a Fuhrman power conditioner, and turn it on and off through that. Set up is through some extra software which is very basic but works well. Also, I find PreSonus customer service very responsive, e.g. when I asked them about connection of the ADAT units. I can highly recommend it.

I love PS gear. Have been using their interfaces (24c, etc.) for years now, but I wanted more than one or two inputs so that I could start getting into recording drums with multiple mics, and I am psyched to get going with this unit, BUT, why did no one at PreSonus think, "Hey, wait, if we put the power button on the back, then our customers are going to have to go around to the back of their rackmounts to turn this thing on. What a pain in the *** that will be for folks in small home studio spaces. We had better put the power button on the front." The only other option is to leave the unit on all the time, and is that okay to do? I'm guessing no. Anyone else notice this problem?

I have to dick around with this effing thing every time I restart, to get it to start outputting audio again. UC sees the audio and indicates as much, yet, no sound. It's really annoying. You get what you pay for, but it'll be replaced soon, and wont be buying another presonus product any time soon.

Once all plugged in and ready to go, the unit would not power on.
Spent an hour troubleshooting that.
Presonus is no help. Found info online from a user group that stated you have to spin the power button? Which you can't do btw, but tried anyway. Next day I pushed the power button on and off several times and suddenly it turns on!
My first session that weekend…2626 shuts down for no reason. After checking cables and pushing the power button on and off, on and off several times… finally comes on, finish the session. Now I can't remove the mic cables. Had to take the unit out of the rack snd literally twist and wrestle to remove eight mic cables.
Now I'm afraid to plug anything into it.
Hate this thing. Thought it would be a nice upgrade from the Firestudio project, it's just a cheaper more unreliable replacement.

Spend a little extra and get something else. I ended up returning mine.

I had been using a Presonus Firestudio Project for the last 10 years and decided it was time to upgrade. The Firestudio Project always worked perfect so I thought I'd stay with the Presonus name and try the Quantum 2626. I'm using a 2012 Mac so I don't have all the benefits of Thunderbolt 3 yet, but it is still very fast through the original Thunderbolt. My old tracks even sound better now through the 2626. I didn't realize it but for years my tracks were only playing mono through my monitors and getting to hear my tracks in stereo has gave them new life. The XMAX preamps still sound great and there is zero latency. I use Logic Pro X and had the Quantum 2626 running within a couple minutes of plugging it in. No problems what so ever. It was that easy. Thanks to my Sweetwater sales engineer Jared Kalish for helping me through this purchase. Sweetwater is the best!

Bought for a birthday present to record my drums. Was able to connect to my 2012 Macbook pro with a little bit of work. My Macbook died so I bought an M1 Macbook. Have been trying to connect for over a year and Presonus has been less than helpful. They keep saying there is a new update around the corner. There isn't. They ask you to remove all the security setting off your computer to allow it to work, and it still doesn't. Don't waste your money like I did buying this. Disappointed in lack of customer service from Presonus, and now I am a year and a half out, out of my return window and out of $. Couldn't be more annoyed with Presonus. Also, don't count on being able to talk to someone on the phone. They only communicate through email messaging.

I purchased this interface for the Thunderbolt feature as I live stream a full band mix and I needed to solve the latency issue. This product really delivers. My previous interface was a Scarlett 2i4 and the sound quality in comparison is noticeably better with the Presonus Quantum 2626. I highly recommend this product. Only wish it had a second Midi in/out and a standard USB connection as well. Oh, and Sweetwater rocks! From price to delivery to customer service. Thanks!

Couldn't be happier with this interface. It is compact and versatile with pristine sound transference. What more could I ask?

I was excited to purchase the Quantum 2626 to add to my home studio system; the pricing was very good but was a bit disappointed when I realized with its lack of DSP I could not use my DAW to control it in any way, and no matter how I approached my signal chain I could not use the headphones or monitor for live tracking because of its latency. The quality of its preamps is very good and the addition of a the preamp line send and returns on channels 1 & 2 is nice, but would have been nicer if they would have incorporated this on every channel which would have also allowed for inserting the line send to a monitoring system for latency free monitoring for each of its channels.

I bought a Quantum 2626 interface because I had replaced my old 2012 Macbook Pro with a new Mac Studio with the M1 max chip. My old interface was a Presonus Studiolive 24.4 2 AI board that ran in firewire. The new Mac Studio would not accept my old firewire board and the Quantum 2626 connection is Thunderbolt 3 which matched up perfectly with the Thunderbolt 3 port in the Mac Studio.
The pros: There is virtually no latency whatsoever when recording and it is fast!
The cons: No audio bypass to play through! You cannot listen to anything coming in thru the inputs unless your DAW is loaded and a track is armed with it assigned specifically to the input/output channels. That sucks big time! Sometimes I like to plug in a guitar and write or work on a song part but I can't do it unless I set up my DAW specifically ready to record a track just to hear the instrument I'm playing! It's a great incredible unit, one of the best. But not being able to hear or audition an instrument plugged into the interface without setting up a recording session on your DAW is really poor engineering and designing on Presonus' part.

I got the unit set up and that was straight forward, but I had issues with latency that could not be resolved by emailing tech support, which is one guy. As soon as the latency issue pops up, Tech support is radio silent for a week. Some of the MIDI functions he was asking abt seemed to be getting elaborate, it's a simple issue of on or off, and was getting bouncing or delayed notes and chords not playing fully playing all voices. Had enough I'm gonna get a MOTU

I understand stuff happens, but it's disappointing to get a DOA device with a power plug that hardly fits. Seriously, the plug wiggles around and is basically not making contact.

I will not repurchase,

I have been running the 2626 in my studio for over a year now. It's an excellent product, super-fast & reliable! Just to be honest, with many years of experience. I honestly don't believe you're going to find a better product than the 2626 anywhere close to this price range. In addition, you get great service from Sweetwater and PreSonus. It's just a win, win.

My quantum 2626 is fabulous and tech service was great also love the service

I've owned the 2626 for about 18 months now and I've totally enjoyed it. I have outboard gear hooked up to channels 1 and 2 and I use pipeline through Studio One v5.5. After reading other reviews from people I must say I have not had any of the issues they have described. The 2626 has worked flawlessly for me. I've also read complaints about Presonus customer service, I've used Presonus gear for over 10 years now and have always gotten immediate response from support with follow up to make sure the issue was resolved whenever I needed to contact them. I highly recommend the Quantum 2626 .

I bought this unit just to have a backup interface and to try it out as I was having a lot of trouble with my UA Apollo 8p acting up regularly.

I will say, I do miss the ability to sync/save the preamps gain levels and EQs for each project. The preamps on the apollo were a bit cleaner, and the converters sounded different, some would say more accurate, but I think that's subjective, and I didn't measure that so I don't really have hard data, and honestly my work hasn't been affected by those changes at all.

That's about it. On every other aspect, the 2626 has been a better interface than the 8p, to the point where I ended up selling my 8p and making the 2626 my main interface.

With the 2626 I can run big sessions at a 64 samples buffer, or 128, and record with no latency at all. I don't get the nasty dropouts and cracks I always got with the apollo and I don't have to deal with the console uad software, I do everything in my daw.

With the money that I got left I bought a very nice tube preamp, an 8x8 I/O preamp/interface that I connect to the 2626 via optical, doubling the I/O I had with the apollo, and a super clean passive monitor control, so I am really better off that when I owned a $3k interface with this amazing bang for buck of an interface that Presonus made. Thank you Presonus! You can tell you've been doing this for a long time! You got it right like it is!

I tried out most of the Presonus audio interfaces on the way to settling on this one, and I found this one is the only one that works the way I expected. Used with Studio One, it integrates in such a way that you do not have to worry about managing the internal mixer as a separate item (all the others required this or something like it), it's managed by Studio One and follows what I do in the Console window. I recommend it to anyone who is more interested in recording than geeking with equipment.

I bought this interface to replace an old firewire unit that could no longer keep up. I have to say I'm blown away. I use it in my drum studio and it sounds amazing! For the price point this is a no brainer. It's fast, the mic pres are killer, and my kit records much much better. Just get it!

This is a very well made audio interface. Basically has everything you need to get off the couch and make yourself an industry professional. Get one fast because they may not manufacture this product line forever. Will stay useful for years as I don't see thunderbolt going away by Apple design teams in the Mac even with the new Silicon Arm based chips!!!

Performs as expected. Meets reviews standards. Love the interface. The only thing it's missing is usb connections, which really really sucks. If your using an m1 Mac be prepared to enter your boot and lower security settings then it will allow driver installation.
On the other hand, expect zero help from presonus. This company's support system is a painful joke. I like the product but they are absolutely useless creatures. Although I didn't use them, Sweetwater has a one on one support team to help you. Sweetwater good, presonus bad.
Presonus should give a shout out to Sweetwater for doing their %*"# job. Good job Sweetwater.

I have to say this interface is fantastic. The headphone amps in particular are so good that I just use them for general listening as well. There is also no Complicated Control software which makes it pain-free to set up in Logic ( My daw of choice).

I can only echo the positive comments about this Thunderbolt 3 interface. But Please, Please go to the Universal Control and under "Settings" check the box beside the statement: "Enable optimized PreSonus power plan for Thunderbolt audio streaming."
I could not use a sample rate under 88.2 until I did this. I could not believe that my 64 gigabyte Ram Thunderbolt 3 computer sound card sounded so awful. I just happened to stumble upon this "check box " while almost giving up on this interface. Now this interface sounds great at 44.1 or 48.0 or higher sample rates.

It's hard to give anything a good score if it stopped working within the 30 day return window.

This is my second Presonus product. Years ago, I had bought a used Presonus Firepod, which also worked well until it suddenly stopped being detected by the computer. I replaced that with a couple Focusrite interfaces (Firewire and then Thunderbolt) on the lower end with only 2 mic pres.

With a preference for Thunderbolt and at least 4 mic pres, there aren't many budget oriented options. This Quantum 2626 seemed promising, but I was wary from my past experience. All was fine with this for the first 3 weeks of use. But suddenly when turning it on, it was reproducing sound with significant distortion and glitching. Having already been on the fence about this unit, I have returned it and opted for the Motu 8pre-es. It's a step up in price, but also a step in build quality as well.

When investing time and money like this, I don't believe this Quantum 2626 is of high enough quality to warrant your consideration. Step up to something better/higher price, or of higher quality with less features/inputs.

Before I start, I generally like presonus and this is my 3rd audio device by them I have purchased and I have owned or still own several other pieces of presonus gear such as preamps, headphone amps, control surfaces, and the like. Generally they make excellent products.

I rarely think to do a review on something but for some reason this piece of gear made me want to. First off I'm using this thing almost to it's max. 26 inputs and 18 of it's outputs. I have the m audio profire 2626 connected via adat as well as the presonus digimax D8. The eleven rack in the picture is connected via s/pdif.

So onto the stuff I like about the unit:

1. On my PC, round trip latency can be reduced down to under a ms. This is is a magnitude of several times faster than my old firewire interface.
2. Phantom power switches are on the front (the digimax has them on the back).
3. It was easy to setup and the clocking (knock on wood) seems more stable compared to my old interface.
4. The knobs aren't stepped and feel nice to the touch. Some may not like the smooth feel of them but I do.
5. I'm used to 2 headphone outs on interfaces at this point, however I do appreciate that they are there even if I don't use them.
6. Stability during recording so far has been spot on. I use cubase pro and everything while recording has been great even at low latency settings.
7. If you use studio one, the integration is seamless. I don't but I did give it a go and it works great.

Now for the stuff that I don't like:

1. This is the first audio interface I have owned with really buggy drivers when it comes to playing system audio. Like another has said, audio drop outs are expected and normal at this point and this is literally the first time I have had an audio interface (and this is my 7th one, 3rd one by presonus) that crashes constantly. Thankfully it only seems to do it when not recording. Reaching out to presonus has produced nothing productive.

2. There is no audio pass through. What I mean by this is other recording interfaces I have owned can act like an 8 channel digital preamp when not connected to a PC. If you don't use this as an audio interface and have it connected to a computer all you have is a paperweight. Since there is no audio pass through you must use either a DAW or some kind of audio program if you want to hear the signals being put into the quantum 2626. Not a deal breaker, but sort of annoying when you just want to plug a guitar or bass into it and jam some tunes.

3. I know this is on me mostly (and I did figure it out without bugging tech support) but if you build a PC with thunderbolt 3 like I did. Windows will not automatically download the thunderbolt drivers even if the motherboard has them. Kind of odd, but ok. The other thing I had to learn is that you PC needs permission to connect to thunderbolt devices. Again no big deal, but when you are used to firewire and USB just working and having your PC see said device it was an adjustment. Thankfully once you ok the device you don't have to keep doing so and you can tell your PC to remember the device.

I've had this unit for quite some time now, and the audio drivers have never been stable. When it works, it is excellent, but just be prepared to deal with complete silence when the driver crashes, which is often. The fix is usually to open the Presonus "Universal Control" app that is required to run the 2626. Then change the clock source to some external source, wait several seconds, then back to whatever your clock source should actually be. This sometimes takes several attempts and often the device will crash again. Restarting the unit or windows will also resolve the issue, but as you can imagine, these issues are extremely annoying.

Having used the 2626 only on a few different Windows 10 64 bit systems, I cannot speak to it's stability on Mac. But for Windows, I can confidently say the Presonus drivers are still not stable as of this review in late March of 2021.

On the plus side latency with Thunderbolt 3 is just 1.1mS! This using my ASUS X299 Prime Deluxe II MB with a 3.3GHz i9 14 core chip. It might go lower, I have not tried the lowest buffer setting yet. Sound quality is excellent.

On the downside this is just a 8 input preamp, and 2 x ADAT interface with converters. You get no ability to create a monitor mix in the interface itself. All mixing/routing is done in your DAW. The Universal Control software just shows you the levels at the 8 analog and 16 ADAT inputs.

My best investment yet! What a great piece of gear....i was using a focusrite solo before as my a/d convertor and i hax no idea that was the weakest point in my recording chain once i made a switch to this it was like a blanket was taken off of all of my recordings!!! The clarity and speed it provides is unreal!!! I would recommended this to anyone looking for a great interface with a ton of inputs ! WORTH EVERY PENNY!!

Need fast with near-zero latency in the $500 range? Then, you found the right unit. Plenty of I/O options, more than most in this price range, including ADAT. No frills setup, which is what I prefer. I replaced my much older Fire Studio Project, which has exactly the same analog I/O setup, and meant I didn't have to reconfigure my patch bay and other studio gear routing. A very clean swap out.

At first, I was concerned that the updated Universal Control software didn't have the ability to monitor direct, but then with the near-zero latency, I didn't actually need this function. One less thing to mess with when tracking vocals and analog instruments. Included bundled software was nice. Simple and intuitive layout meant I didn't have to devote time reading the manual and watching instructional videos to use this interface.

Preamps are clean, lots of headroom. Output is actually even more than the unit I replaced, putting the main output dial at 2 o'clock gives me plenty of gain for my studio monitors. Sends and returns on channel 1 & 2 make it easy to incorporate my outboard units. No onboard DSP compared to it's more expensive cousin, but again near-zero latency means I can use the DAW for adding things like reverb to a headphone mix. Dual optical ADAT I/O will come in handy when I decide to incorporate some other gear.

One word of advice, if you don't have a Thunderbolt 3 compatible computer, you can use a Thunderbolt 2 port, but you will need a Thunderbolt 2 cable paired with an Apple Thunderbolt 3 to 2 adapter... Apple is the only manufacturer who currently makes the adapter, but you can get that through Sweetwater as well.

The Quantum 2626 is good for recording multiple instruments at one time. Thunderbolt three is a great feature and still at a very reasonable price compared to other interfaces. The headphone outputs are particularly excellent. The fact that the interface coordinates completely with the PreSonus software is a definite plus. It is rack-mountable for those who use the rack mount system.
DAW Bench tested this interface and shows consistently how this and other PreSonus interfaces rate poorly as far as latency issues with cracks and pops being the result with even a small amount of plugins. I am disappointed that it does overburden the CPU on my excellent 6-core 4.2 GHz 64 gigabyte RAM PC. I have struggled with cracks and pops continually no matter what buffer size or sample rate I choose. I will probably go for an RME interface as they rate very much higher in the way they handle your computer's CPU.

I really want to like it. At its price, it is a great value for a TB3 connection. For recording, it has competent, quiet pre's and next to no latency for monitoring live while tracking, even when linked to other gear via SPDIF. The problems arise when you leave your DAW and try to browse the internet. If you attempt to use YouTube, for example, you will run into drop outs, choppiness and eventually lose sound altogether. This is regardless of buffer settings (even at 512) or sample rate. I thought I might be alone with this problem, but a quick search of forums reveals that Presonus has known about this problem for a long time and it is very unlikely they will address it. So, be prepared to switch to a different interface to hear your computer audio when you leave your DAW. Otherwise, it is a competent recording interface at a low price.

I love the reliability of this unit as compared to my last one for recording mics and direct guitars. I have not used any of the ports on the back. I wish the input strength indicator lights on the front were larger so that they could be seen when trying to mic a drum set solo.

Pros
1. Excellent high quality preamps
2. Heavy duty knobs
3. All around solid build
4. Easy installation. Load driver and restart.
5. Locking power supply
6. User friendly app with RTA eq spectrum
7. No latency issues what so ever
8. Tons of added plugins
9. Lots of I/O and expandability
10. Overall best TB3 interface for the money

Cons
1. Doesn't operate as a stand alone interface. Meaning you can't just power it up and jam out. It has to be connected to a computer for sound and daw to here you inputs.

I've only had this for a week or so but I have to say that I'm blown away. I'm a retired video producer/director and have produced hundreds of soundtracks, using a few interfaces starting with my trusty Delta 1010 back in the early 2000s. I got it primarily to reduce latency (I play guitar through amp sims) and to increase my # of outputs. I'm currently running it at 44.1K/64 with really heavily loaded songs and my latency is extremely low, probably around 5 or 6ms. Granted I have a new PC that rocks with an i7-9700k chip so that helps. But I'm pretty sure I could run it at 32 without issues. I haven't had time to fully test it with latencymon but I could immediately feel the difference, and I'm very sensitive to latency. I'll report back after I've tested that.

The quality of the A/D converters seems to be quite good, but I haven't tested any of the 96K stuff yet so I can't really comment yet. My understanding is that the A/Ds are the same as the original Quantum.

Set was simple. I love the integration with Studio One but I'm still an old Sonar guy, and it plays nicely with that and all other software I have. But one of the relatively unique things is the "Preamp" outs and returns on Ch 1 and 2... essentially a send/receive, so you can hookup outboard gear for those channels, like compression or an efx unit. Personally, I plan on putting the lead vocalist's mic in Ch 1, sending the dry unaffected signal to the mixer, but then in my pc I'll run his mic through my Host's/DAW EFX (I use Cantabile as the host for my gig rig... amazing app), then send that to an open channel on the mixer as an efx return. So not only do I now have crazy low latency effects with all my plugins, I can also program the efx in my Host to trigger various effects. I could trigger with my midi pedalboard, or for songs with backing tracks I can trigger at any points in the song automatically. Makes the sound guy's life easier, and no more missed cues.

My only "complaint" is that I wish the preamp ins/outs were assignable to different channels, instead of being locked to 1 & 2. Only 1&2 are instrument level inputs, so I have to tie up Ch 2 for my guitar input. But you can workaround that, either using aux sends on your board to go into those channes, or in your host/DAW send whatever you want to the output you've designated as your EFX return out.

For the money, this is outstanding. I'd had some serious complaints with my first gen Presonus Studiolive 16.0.2 board, especially the UC software. But Presonus really got it right with this unit.

Ordered from Sweetwater and waited for a month for overseas delivery and customs. Worth it. Sound is good, build is very solid and knobs feels great but these are not its greatest strength. Seriously the smallest latency I have ever seen in my life. It is so fast (1.6ms roundtrip with adat 8 channels on) that it does not need to be faster anymore.

But it does come at some expense. No on board audio routing, which means no direct monitoring, computer loop-back (internal recording) and so on. I guess the speed come with trade-offs.

Therefore, this thing is designed for more rigid DAW use case, perfect for multi-track realtime live recording. Utilizing the two pairs of ADAT does not slow it down. But flexibility will be a big issue if you are used to the fancy routings on Focusrite for example.

You can't go wrong with the number of inputs and outputs on this interface. Not to mention, it's thunderbolt 3 so it will remain current for quite a while. The set up was easy and I had no issues using it with Pro Tools. Just remember to download the drivers from Presonus after plugging in the unit and before launching your DAW. I look forward to many recordings through the Presonus 2626!

Great interface, but beware! The driver was very sketchy but finally got it to work with ProTools.
Also, this is NOT a 'pass-through' interface. You must run this through a DAW AND have monitoring/recording enabled to hear any audio using the inputs. Will not work as a stand alone unit!

Just received one of the first Quantum 2626 units. Hookup and config is a breeze, as is typical for a PreSonus and Apple system. When I placed my order, Sweetwater were kind enough to include a 2-meter 20mbit Thunderbolt 3 cable with it, so there was nothing else to buy. First and foremost, this sucker is FAST!!! Configured with a 32 byte buffer, round-trip latency of 1ms and below is the norm. If you're like me, and appreciate having all the inputs on the front panel, the 2626 is the one for you. No I/O level meters, but that's where Universal Control comes in (an application downloadable from your PreSonus account, once you register the 2626 with them). Another thing I like about the 2626 is that it has a good headphone amp in it. A lot of other interfaces I have worked with had very weak headphone levels. The 2626 does not. It pumps out very well to the cans. It also comes bundled with a boatload of other downloadable software, including Native Instruments Replika, Cherry Audio Voltage Nucleus, Melodics Studio Bundle, KV331 Audio SynthMaster Player, UVI Model D piano, Ableton Live Lite, Plugin Alliance plugins, Lexicon MPX-i Reverb, Arturia Analog Lab Lite, Output Movement, Klanghelm SDRR2tube, Studio Linked Trophies by Bryan Michael Cox, UJAM Virtual Drummer PHAT 2, iZotope Neutron Elements, and Studio One 4 Artist. At this amazingly low price point, it's a wonder how PreSonus were able to design and produce such a fantastic audio interface as the Quantum 2626. I love it! You will, too!

I've been wanting to switch to a Thunderbolt interface for some time now. I've been using USB for several years and I use a lot of guitar modeling software so latency is important for me. I can't believe how great this interface sounds for the price! I can track using Amplitube or Guitar Rig at 64 buffers and get around 2ms roundtrip latency on my Mac Book Pro!!! The preamps are solid and quiet and I also dig the fact that the line inputs bypass the preamps so I can use my Warm Audio WA12 straight into it.There was nothing I could find that competes to this at even double the price.