Why I buy this one ?
- 2 x 2 16-bit/48kHz analog I/O w/ preamps
- 2 microphone inputs (XLR balanced) with 48v phantom power
- 2 high-impedance instrument/line inputs (balanced/unbalanced 1/4" TRS)
- Zero-latency hardware direct monitoring (mono/stereo) with software level control
- USB-powered for total mobility

Electronica Direct offers this stuff with condition New, new for:

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Streamline Audio Video offers this stuff with condition New, new for:

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J&R Music and Computer World offers this stuff with condition New, new for:

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Music Bay offers this stuff with condition New, new for:

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What our customer's say!

"great home studio builder", any electronic musician who wants to record some vocals and sequenced music will love all the features of this device. Plus the version of Live is great.

"VISTA Support updated", Update: Looks like they actually came through with the VISTA drivers, which were released on 8/22/2008. Since I returned mine, I would love to hear if you have it working on Vista SP1 or better.


**** Previous review ****

Looked like a decent product, however.... Turns out that the drivers for VISTA are still in Beta after 1 year (last release of the driver is over a year ago). To make matters worse, it is known NOT to work with Vista SP1, as of May 2008. They don't expect to have a driver update until October. However, since the last driver update is over a year ago, I put the chances of a real driver update at near zero. Too bad, looked like a good product.

Didn't work on any of my VISTA machines. Sending it back.

"poor audio quality", I bought this preamp for "boosting" my voice as I record video tutorials. I own a Shure SM-58 microphone with XLR inputs, and my Intel MacPro has no such inputs, so I thought this would be just the thing. After installing the latest version of their drivers for Leopard or OS 10.5.1, I thought everything was going to be great. In System Preferences I changed all the proper input settings for the Mobilepre. Cranked the input volume all the way up on the hardware side and the sound that came out of there was simply DISAPPOINTING. It was so soft. I even tried turning on the Phantom power switch to see if that was the problem.

I guess the most disappointing aspect of this whole experience is that the M-Audio website was plain bad. I registered so I could sign on and contact tech support. Their website apparently was having problems and there were folks like myself posting that they couldn't log in. Somewhere on their website, they had a notice that said they were aware of that and apologized for that but no word on how or when they expect to have that fixed.

I don't mind having to jump through hoops to make something work but when there is no help in sight, and a company doesn't address tech support issues quickly, I'm going elsewhere. Perhaps this product works with Windows machines. I couldn't get it to work on an Intel MacPro running OS 10.5.2

"I like it", This is great for a laptop, because your music sounds so much better through it than through a puny laptop sound card. Like night and day. I am very satisfied with the recording sound quality for basic music recording. The controls are easy to access, everything is simple, and all I have to do is plug in the USB and it automatically switches between my computer sound card and the MobilePre.

"M-Audio MobilePre", I ordered this the same day I ordered a guitar from Guitar Center, If you see "Email for availability" on a web page you are ordering from that means its back ordered. After 20 days of waiting they sent an email stating it was going to be another 30 days. I shopped real stores and bought a beautiful Stratocaster. BUT by that time my 30 day warranty was up and the M-Audio bearly functions. The head phone jack has to be pulled out in just this special place to work; the USB connection crackles and cuts out completely sometimes. My musician friends are back in town and say Line 6 is better. No matter I'm very happy to be playing again. The delay gave me time to realize I needed good instrument that is a joy to play and I got this sweet Fender instead of the 150 buck bargain. Oh! the M-Audio was a refurbish...NO bargain

Read this reviews before You buy...

"Perfect", This item is perfect. it does what the manual says it does. I opened this box about two hours ago and I can't stop recording music with it. I installed the drivers, plugged it and it worked. I didn't have to do any configuration changes except for changing the input settings on Garageband. Sound is clear and I didn't have any flow in the sound or recording. I was able to record two instruments at the same time guitar and vocals. Preamp works a lot better than I expected. I would give it a 5 out 5. I recommend this item to anyone. I tried other items such as Tascam US-224 (good luck if you can make this thing work) and Tascam 788. A mac and this item is everything you need to start recording your own tracks. Also, they don't make it in blue color anymore like shown on the picture above. The new color is metallic gray with a black front. It matches the color of my Macbook Pro. Check out the new Mac Laptops they start at $1100 or the Mac Mini at $700. They both very powerful, but if you can afford a Macbook Pro buy one. You can't go wrong with a Mac it does more than windows base computers. You can also install windows if you like. but after using Mac OS X, you can't go back to windows.
Macbook Pro, Mac OS X 10.4.7
1.8 GHz, Dual Core Intel
I Gig Memory
Garage Band

"Bought it to Rip my LP collection", Since I don't do live music, you will probably look to other reviews from musicians from that standpoint. I am just an audiophile looking for a good external audio card that gets me away from the interference that happens to an audio card insided your PC case.

In the first two weeks, I discovered a couple of things. Out of the box the product seems to be well-constructed, BUT getting it loaded into Windows XP has proved a hassle.

First of all, I tried loading it on a new XP Media edition laptop, and that ended up being a failure, because you can't run this product through a USB Hub. On a USB 2 device (newer computer) it has to plug directly into the computer, and I had other uses (like wireless keyboard / mouse) that took precedence.

So, I decided to run it from a 5 year old XP Pro Dell desktop that actually serves my music collection, because it was built with USB 1.1 ports, although I added a USB 2 card and hub to it.

The Audiophile is a real "bear" to install in XP (at least for me on two different computers) -- it actually loads what appear to be two distinct drivers, and does a partial install and completes it on the re-boot. After 5 attempts, I am still trying get a complete good install. I usually get a partial install, which I can't correct -- even in XP "safe" mode, and have to strip the install and come back and try a re-install.

Now I'm not going to say this is all M-Audio's fault -- I am running SP2 with all the security fixes installed, and it may be a problem with a Microsoft update. Tech Support at M-Audio is not particularly helpful.

One of the interesting features is that the headphones jack does not monitor input -- rather they monitor playback only. That was a disturbing discovery.

I would recommend considering alternative cards if you are just looking for capturing music from other media. It may be a great MIDI recording source.

UPDATE after living with it for a few months, I did find I finally was able to connect it through a USB hub, so that's a plus. The headphone monitoring feature is still a nagging design disappointment. After all, we corrected that on analog tape decks over 35 years ago. You can't tell if you are clipping or underdubbing a source until you have finished and go back to listen to the whole thing. If you misjudge, you can't correct on the fly and you have to completely redub the recording.

"Great product!", The Amazon.com price is better than most that you will find out there, and the unit itself had no problems (I only use it with one microphone) The software that they included is a bit complicated and is just a trial version, so you shouldn't expect this to come with a fully functional mixing program. One thing that I didn't expect was that whenever my Mobilepre is plugged in, my computer automatically uses it as the audio device, so I have to plug my headphones into the Mobilepre, but this shouldn't be too big of a problem. The unit itself is extremely light! and I'm not sure if the blue and white version you see above is an older model or something, but the one I recieved and asked others about is a metallic silver color (which looks much cooler, so its a good thing!)

"You get what you pay for.", Great price for a portable usb mic pre. But you definitely get what you pay for. The audio quality is extremely poor, and it quite often crashed the system. If you are doing simple recordings like podcasts or just getting scratch tracks for song ideas, this is the item for you. Otherwise, save your pennies up for the Lexicon Omega, or the paragon of portable audio interface: the Mbox 2.

"Much better than I expected", I bought this hardware expecting to just make some nice tracks of myself...maybe for a demo. Some of the reviews had some negative things to say so I was very skeptical. I just expected it to be OK, but I must admit I was extremely surprised. First off, I think the software and kind of mic you use are most important when it comes to the mobilepre. The software it came with is very inadequate. I'm using CoolEditPro along with a Shure Beta58 mic, and the sound is phenomenal for personal PC recording. For the price you pay, I think this is an INCREDIBLE deal for beginner recording equipment. The sound you get is by no means studio quality, but you get 85% of studio power for 15% the price of studio equipment. Bottom line, it's great for anyone looking for simple starting pc recording hardware. A Great value.

If you want a sample of what I've recorded with the mobilepre, feel free to email me and I'll send you a sample of one of my recordings.