Lexicon Omega Desktop Recording Studio

I have been using a Lexicon Omega Studio Model: LEXOMEGA SV, manufactured by Harmon Corporation for about 9 months, on a constant basis, used every Wednesday and every Sunday for recording Worship services.

We currently use approximately 18 channels on a 32 channel board, and I use the 4 channel recorder to pick up 4 mixes off the subgroups (lead vox, back vox, inst rt, inst lt). We use a small 8 channel snake of TRS balanced 1/4th" jacks to connect from the subgroup outs to channels 1, 2, 3, 4 in and the main L R outs to feed back into two channels on the board for monitoring at a later point during mixdown and post production. I use a Dell Optiplex GX280 HT 2.8GhZ processor with 4GB or RAM and have the lexicon plugged directly into the motherboard's USB 2.0 connector (not a PCI I/O card). We use Sony Acid 7.0b to multitrack, with no other programs running, 38 processes running on Windows XP SP3.

All this is to say this: the unit repeately freezes. And not just once in a blue moon, and not just related to one USB port either (this machine has 8). The firmware was updated from the Lexicon/Omega website and it still freezes on me in the middle of recordings. I have changed the configuration to use the MIC1 MIC2 XLR inputs as channels 1/2 instead of using the 1/4th" jacks and it has made no difference in this unit's performance.

HOWEVER...
When this little box works, its great! I am not using the CUBase LE that the I/O came with, as we are licensed for Sony, which is in my opinion just as good if not a better DAW than what Steinberg outputs. And, in that same vein we are not using the Lexicon Pantheon VST Reverb plugin. We use iZotope Ozone 4 and have found it to be much more powerful, and not even the same caliber. The unit is recognized by Sony's software perfectly and the ASIO latency works very well with not much delay at all. The preamps I feel are acceptable for something of this price, and they function like they should.

When researching the box, Lexicon claims that this unit has the capability to simultaneously take 8 inputs. I have found this to be a complete lie. As far as assignable inputs there are 7 (TRS inputs 1, 2, 3, 4; XLR inputs 1, 2; and TRS Instrument input [only into channel 3]). Unassignable is the SPDIF input, and there is 1 MIDI input as well.

If you are looking for a box that can handle 4 inputs and multitrack those then this is an ok purchase, again, as I have stated that ours freezes quite often. The playback has never frozen, only recording.

If I had the opportunity to buy again, I would choose a FIREWIRE devise, as they are proven over and over again to work flawlessly (we have tested a Presonus FireStudio 8 channel input on the same computer using all 8 channels recorging simultaneously and the computer never froze, and the noise floor was much more dramatic).

This audio interface is great to use. When you first get it you have to play with it a little to get the hang of it but its a very useful device. i am very glad i got it. All the different features included can be useed in many different ways, for example you can switch the phantom power on and off depending on the mic. The only wierd thing about it is that there is no on and off switch for the device, you just plug it in and out of the power socket.