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The Gain knobs are staggered in their placement. Instead of the top row controlling channels 1-4 and the bottom 5-8, it alternates from the top to bottom diagonally. I found this confusing at first, especially when reaching for a channel while simply glancing to the side. But I got used to it. At PreSonus, we know that the microphone preamplifier is a key component in the sonic quality of a recording. The Quantum 2626 audio interface includes eight custom-design, high-voltage, Class A XMAX preamps with discrete components for accuracy and transparency. When it comes to audio interfaces, PreSonus have a long history of adopting new protocols. They were among the first few companies to make a Firewire interface (the 2003 FireStation, which was also the first to make use of Yamaha's mLAN protocol), and more recently they've been keen early proponents of both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt. Their first interface to use the latter was the PreSonus Quantum, which took full advantage of Thunderbolt's data transfer speed to provide remarkably low latency. You can read our glowing review of it in the September 2017 issue. The Quantum is still available, but is now part of a range of Quanta that includes the Quantum 4848 (a no-frills but high-I/O-count device designed to work with analogue consoles) and the subject of this review, the Quantum 2626. Quantum Mechanics This unit was established after the celebrated Quantum 2632 audio interface. This interface was known to have a progressive approach to how it worked. Released a few years after this interface, the Quantum 2626 is a more innovative development in the Quantum series of audio interfaces by PreSonus.
Both these buffer sizes let me run quite CPU taxing sessions and monitor via plugins. But if you’re willing to keep things simple, the 16-sample buffer setting in Studio One 4 delivered a whole 1.27ms round-trip latency. By my count, Intel has issued at least 3 driver updates in 2021 for the Thunderbolt chip I have in my rig. I have kept up with this by using a subscription service called Driver Fusion, but even its many recommendations for driver updates have to be taken with a grain of salt. I've learned to examine driver author and version numbers carefully before embracing an update. In any event, Intel themselves are seeing Thunderbolt issues all the time and are very actively trying to beat the bugs out with their driver updates. Ideally, a report on the experience of working with an audio interface should be pretty short. What you’d hope to read is that it was plugged in, recording software recognised it without fuss, and that audio came into and went out of the appropriate holes without noticeable latency, sounding great. In the real world, alas, it seldom works out like that, because a built-in mixer that’s supposed to make things easier ends up making everything far more complicated than it needs to be. You seem quite upset over some assumptions. In the future, try engaging in a tone that doesn't appear to be trolling, especially when you don't have correct info. Hardware level Matrix monitoring/Mixing is not the same thing you're talking about at all. This is a nice little Interface with alot of I/O expandability. I was able to hook up my old Interface (pro 40 flashed to standalone mode) as an 8 channel adat preamp bank for 16 channels.
Apple Silicon compatibility—standard.
A Roland GI-20 MIDI guitar converter is hooked up to the MIDI ports and works great. That means one less USB cable as I don't to use a separate MIDI interface.
Over several weeks, I recorded electric guitar, acoustic guitar, mandolin, electric bass and vocals through the 2626. The XMAX preamps were clean and neutral-sounding, to my ears. With the included PreSonus Studio One™ Artist DAW and Studio Magic Software Suite, the Quantum 2626 is a complete recording solution. The interface also is compatible with virtually any recording software for macOS or Windows. Free PreSonus UC Surface control software provides access to full metering and an integrated real-time analyzer (RTA). The PreSonus Quantum offers spectacularly low latency and a simplified way of working. Is it the best Thunderbolt interface you can buy?PROS: Fast performance makes latency a non-issue; all inputs on front; gain controls on front; hardware Inserts; expandable via ADAT and S/PDIF; generous software bundle; cue monitoring integration with Studio One; excellent value
Setting up the Quantum 2626 is easy and very intuitive. The absence of a routing matrix, DSP mixer, and built-in effects make using the Quantum 2626 very simple The 1RU unit sports eight front-panel XLR-1/4-inch combo inputs. Channels 1 and 2 support mic or Hi-Z sources, and channels 3-8 are for mic- or line-level sources. You don’t see that many interfaces with eight inputs on the front. Particularly for home setups without patch bays, it’s a convenient design. The Quantum has Thunderbolt 2 ( 20 Gbps), and the 2626 has Thunderbolt 3 ( 40 Gbps). Is the 2626 actually utilizing the doubled bandwidth, or does it have the same performance as the Quantum? Hi there everyone. I am planning to buy a Quantum interface and am trying to decide between the original Quantum (26x32) and the recently released Quantum 2626.
Quantum leap
In use the 2626 performed excellently. The Class A XMAX mic pres sounded wonderfully clear, with plenty of gain, and the operational simplicity of the unit meant no curve balls. But the winner here is the round-trip latency. Using Apple Logic X this was an impressive 3.4ms with 64-samples buffer size, and even at 128 samples I found the 6.3ms latency mostly workable.
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. The first two inputs are designed for mic or instrument, while the remaining Inputs (3-8) interchange between mic and line. This depends on the kind of connector that is used. Next to these are preamp gain controls and simple multicolored LED metering to signify the activity and clipping on each channel.ADAT Optical/Dual SMUX inputs/outputs: 16x16 channels at 44.1 or 48 kHz; 8x8 channels at 88.2 or 96 kHz
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