I own a Mobile-Pre USB, this is a great little box that connects to your computer and provides the following inputs: 2x XLR(with phantom power), 2x 1/4″, 1/8″ Stereo Mic. You also have 2x 1/4″ out and a 1/8″ Stereo out (for monitoring) . The sample rate can go up to 48khz (better than CD quality). All while running off a USB cable with no other power required.

One of the issues that I encountered was a significant latency between speaking into the mic and what I heard in the headphones. If you search Google, this is apparently a pretty common problem.

My first attempt at using the Mobile-Pre USB box was with an older laptop running XP. The initial results were dissapointing. I had the latency issue so I couldn’t monitor my levels live, I had to record and then play back. I also was unable to use Audacity, it simply didn’t see the mic I had hooked up. I found if I installed the ASIO4All driver and then used the version of Ableton Live 6 that came with the Pre USB I got pretty good results.

Recently, I was installing XP into a partition on one of my desktops. I thought I would try an experiment. After installing XP and only the most basic drivers it needs, ethernet, video card etc, I installed the Mobile-Pre USB driver and then Audacity. Audacity worked right off the bat, and the results were fantastic. NO LATENCY AND NO DISTORTION!

I would advise anyone who has one of these devices that they are capable of very good sound.  Due to the fact the Mobile-Pre runs off  USB completely, it’s great for laptops.  It can operate with no latency without special drivers. Issues to consider are the amount of ram in your system and CPU, more and faster are always better. I believe that the issue I was encountering with my laptop is the typical Windows issue that over time there is a general slowdown in performance that can really only be alleviated by a fresh install of the OS.

BTW, when I say No Latency, I really should say no detectable latency. Technically there may be a few millisconds, but subjectively I am not hearing it.