Speaking of which, although the unit supports the use of higher sample rates (up to 96kHz), and is happy to output a clock signal up to that rate, it wonВґt accept clock rates higher than 48kHz at its word clock input (or S/PDIF input).

With a fully charged (and FireWire-equipped) laptop and an Mbox Pro 2 youВґre able to record high-quality audio anywhere you like. This effectively means that the unit is ready for recording on the move straight out of the box. We were expecting to have to use the supplied power supply to top-up the current, but we were wrong. We had no trouble running the 48V phantom power facility on the Mbox 2 Pro when it was connected to our MacBook. The headphone outputs are loud, and we preferred the sound of them to the headphone output on our Apogee MiniDAC, which was quite a surprise. This is a godsend for users who are used to sharing one mix while recording. This means you can set up a separate mix for your vocalist while youВґre monitoring using the regular output mix. The first is hardwired to the monitor outputs, but the second can be configured to give you outputs 3-4 at the press of a switch.

One of the handiest features of the Mbox Pro 2 is the provision of two headphone sockets on the front panel. One thing to watch out for, though, is that it wonВґt work correctly on a FW800 buss - the Mbox Pro 2 is rated for FW400 only. The FireWire interface handled everything we threw at it, including six outgoing audio streams at 96kHz.

Mbox 2 pro problems