comparison Fireface400 vs. Fireface800

["Rainer Thelonius Balthasar Straschill" <rs@moinlabs.de>]

A lot of people here seem to be using the Fireface400 or Fireface800, and 
some of them are using even both (Hi Luca), so I'd like to do a comparison 
of both and ask whether I missed anything here:

Since some people need more than the 2 micpres supplied by the 
Fireface400, I also considered a variant with a Quadmic.

So here we go:

                        Fireface 800            Fireface 400            
FF400+Quadmic
Price(Street)   €1219                         €879                     
     €1254
Form factor             fullrack                        halfrack           
             fullrack

I/O
In: Micpre              4                               2                  
             6
In: total               10                              8                  
             8
Out: total              10                              8                  
             8
digi I/O                16                              8                  
             8

MIDI I/O                1                               2                  
             2

Standalone mixer                                        *                  
             *
LineIn limiter  *


Summarizing: both interfaces seem to be lacking for applications which 
require lots of microphones - for a singing drummer e.g., both the FF400 
and the FF800 don't offer enough micpres. There is the option of extending 
the interfaces with similar-quality micpres using the quadmic or octamic 
pres by RME, at a price - the combo of FF400 and Quadmic (which gives you 
6 pres, prolly enough for most solo applications) is even more expensive 
than the FF800.

There are a few small details which might be of interest to some users. 
The FF400's standalone mixer functionality is great if your computer 
crashes mid-performance. On the other hand, the FF800's limiter saves you 
yet another device (and thus rack real estate), especially when going into 
the interface with transient-prone instruments (e.g. bass guitar). Sadly, 
it's not available for the mic ins. And again, the additional pair of MIDI 
I/O of the FF400 might also save you another device in the setup. Worth 
mentioning (but I guess not for our typical applications) is the 
additional pair of ADAT I/O on the FF800.



Did I miss something here?

        Rainer