SOLD WTS: Yamaha Steinberg MR816CSX Firewire Audio Interface

[zenmusic]

Brand New Sealed Yamaha Steinberg MR816CSX for sale. Spare set. Selling because I need the money. Asking $550. Please PM me if you are interested.

In my opinion, this is the most value-for-money interface one can get. It offers 8 excellent mic pres which can even provide enough gain for the power-hungry Shure SM7/SM7B. The ADDA is also very good. There are some comparisons with the more expensive Prism Orpheus. Although those tests were not fairly conducted, it does give you an idea of how good this unit is. Personally, I have A/Bed it with more expensive setups with boutique ADDAs and vintage NEVE pres. While the more expensive stuff is slightly better, I feel that the unit holds its own. The sound of the MR816CSX is warm and musical.

The firewire units can be cascaded. When I was working at summer NAMM, I saw the steinberg team record a concert with 3 units cascaded with no problems. Personally, I have only cascaded 2 units myself.

The drivers are also stable, at least for windows. Not sure about Mac. This is MADE IN JAPAN, unlike the cheaper interfaces so build quality is very good. Very good integration with cubase. If you use Cubase, you should just get this unit.

 

[XenoJin]

This is a great interface, put to waste by terrible firewire drivers. Yes, the drivers are not stable at all, at least for windows. Simply google MR816 dropouts, you'll see.

On the other hand, I have no such issues on my Mac with the MR816.
$550 is a very good deal for such a quality interface.

Just saying~

 

[zenmusic]

The thing with windows is 1) you must know what you are doing 2) always get good hardware, and you will have no problems. I NEVER once had a problem with mine on my desktop (I handpicked all the components and optimise windows for audio) or on my laptop (macbook pro running windows 7).

 

[zenmusic]

Just to add again that I am able to run the interface when tracking at 64 samples with zero dropouts or hiccups. For mixing, I will have no problems with 128 samples but I will usually set it at 256 samples to be safe.

 

[XenoJin]

Yeah, of course, it's doesn't affect everyone, but there is a good amount of people experiencing the same dropout issues on Windows. I own this too, and it's causing dropout problems on my Windows regardless of buffer size, my 2 other Focusrite firewire interface on the other hand works flawlessly.
Then again it could be just bad hardware, but I'm using a PCI-E TI chip firewire card though~

 

[zenmusic]

I am really surprised as I have not had audio dropouts or hang or blue screen with MR816CSX. Been using it for several years.

Maybe I can help you with your situation if you share more information with me?

May I know which version of Windows you are running? What components? Have you disabled all power management(especially sleep and hibernate) on windows? Have you updated to the latest firmware (need to flash the unit) and drivers?

Not all TI chipsets are built equal. Get the pure firewire, not the Firewire/USB kind. Generally, firewire 400 TI chipset is the good one to get but difficult to find. The 800 ones are a hit or miss. I too believed strongly in TI chipsets and was really surprised when it worked flawlessly with my macbook pro running windows 7 Ultimate Bootcamp(Apple stopped using TI for many years).

 

[XenoJin]

Hmm, I've tried many different ways like adjusting the settings on the BIOS, as well as the power management stuffs, all firmware/drivers have been updated to latest as well~

I'm using Windows 8, although I've tried it on a Windows 7 on a separate partition as well. The only work around is by using the ysfwutility tool to set the IEEE1394 buffer size to Medium, this improves the dropout issues, but it's still there, just less often. The dropout problems seem to occur consistently only when there is "load" on my computer, like when opening my Google Chrome or while scrolling though the webpage.

My TI card is the 800 + 400 ones, I'm starting to think it could be my firewire card...

If I can't get the issue solved, I'm probably thinking of selling my unit as well

 

[zenmusic]

Hi, sorry for the late reply. Down with flu. My first advice is not to connect to internet when u are recording. I would disable wireless and any networking devices on the computer when I am doing recording. Did you use the steinberg ASIO drivers? Which DAW are u using?

Also, I found this guide as it includes many of the same things I would do but is really a very comprehensive troubleshooting guide:

https://www.steinberg.net/en/suppor...mr816-resolving-audio-performance-issues.html

In addition, I had a friend who had a similar problem as you before but later found that it was the firewire cable that caused it. Let me know if all this helps.

 

[XenoJin]

Yeah, I have tried everything you have mentioned before, and more. No avail. The only thing I can conclude is probably bad/incompatible firewire drivers for the MR816. Because this does not happen with my other firewire interfaces, only the MR816~ I can't really what else would be the problem based on this logic~