Routing flexibility and intuitive one-click set-up solutions; Saffire Mix Control provides an 16 x 8 DSP mixer with excellent output routing and monitoring capabilities.
Two dedicated front-panel headphone busses
Providing two fully customised monitor mixes, with tactile level control available on the front panel.
This incredible sound card is all-in-one studio gear. For your money you get high quality 24-bit/96kHz firewire interface, 16 inputs/8 outputs, top sound quality DAC, award-winning Focusrite pre-amps (even on max gain almost no sign of noise with worse/problematic mics.... & absolutely no sign of noise with quality mics), latency-free mixing & routing with onboard DSP-powered tools, 2 dedicated headphone busses on front panel (much power for almost all headphones in the world, just with no sound on highest volume there's little hiss in headphones) & of course my favorite VRM - Virtual Reference Monitoring.
Virtual Reference Monitoring with usable monitors (source: Focusrite.com)
VRM works perfectly... of course real speakers are invincible, but this is sick, it is really good. For portable use & problematic places or 'must be quiet' rooms it's must have for mastering ;D Believe me, it works very good... if you have quality headphones!!! More about
VRM.
Front panel is lovely, 5 LED analog input metering is superb, but two dedicated headphone busses are priceless for both of them works VRM too with newest update from Focusrite
support.
With this sound card you can & most likely you will hear every defect & low bitrate weakness of tracks... prepare for that!
Even multiple recordings are easy & without any problems thanks to firewire bus. Under MacOS X it is strong & stable card & Focusrite Mix Control software is very handy... you can do almost everything (routing, mixing, DSP effects dor analog inputs 1,2) ad infinitum....
Mix Control 2.0 (source: Focusrite.com)
I use it with
Apple Logic Pro 9 &
Propellerheads Reason v4. I haven't known much cunning tweaks with this card & the monitoring software yet, so if someone is good in this, I'll really appreciate any hints or tips for simplifying producing & recording music....

I had Creative Audigy 4, M-Audio Firewire Audiophile, M-Audio FW 410 & Yamaha GO46, but this card is something else. For about $400 it's incredible friend for your home studio, even professional recording studio... lots of famous producers use it. The build quality is high as hell, knobs are sturdy, the body is metal with plastic front panel. Buttons on front panel are superb, on the back side power switch is top quality as are all connectors (balanced TRS are even with kinda 'screw thread', I would say).
Novamusik.com Focusrite Audio Interface Demo Video
Professional reviews:
FINAL CONCLUSION:
+ Virtual Reference Monitoring (VRM)
+ High Quality Of DACs
+ Award-winning Pre-amps
+ Onboard DSP EQs
+ 2 Dedicated Headphones Busses
+ Stable Drivers Under OS X
+ Really Handy Focusrite Mix Control
+ Sturdy Construction
+ Quality X-Cite Bundle Pack
- - - - -
- Little Hiss On The Highest Headphone Output Volume
- It Doesn't Make Music Alone
- You Can't Buy It For Free
ENJOY!!!