I'd be cautious about the FireStudio. I had FOUR of them in quick succession, two were DOA, two were badly flawed and essentially unusable (if you value sound quality and reliability), but in different ways. I used them under OSX so YMMV but these appear to be the basic flaws:
1 Clock - it doesn't pay any attention to the OSX core audio driver when it instructs hardware to change Fc. That is, if you change sample rates in your audio app, FireStudio will ignore this important info!
2 When locked, mine (the working ones anyway) would drift out of lock and either stop the recording or generate clicks in the audio files. This is a no-no.
3 Software intolerance - open a new window or application and get clicks in recording & playback.
4 It wants networking services, especially wireless networking, switched off or it's (again) prone to a barrage of clicks.
So I gave up and went on to an RME Fireface 800 which is a whole different ball game. Unconditionally stable (I've made 8 channel 96kHz recordings while burning a DVD in the background and communicating with the producer via email in the foreground) It NEVER clicks! The 4 mic preamps are noticeably better than the FireStudio but the AD/DA is Apogee standard and a whole order of quality better than the FS. Yes, it costs twice as much. But then it's never lost me any clients either...
I don't want to bash Presonus, they're doing well producing a low-cost product for a discriminating market and I still own their Central Station monitoring switcher which is an essential part of my rig & sounds great! I just get the feeling that 90% of their users are making 3.5 minute guitar/bass/sampled drums projects at 44.1kHz and that's who they're testing for. This market is also tolerant of "minor" problems and endless driver upgrades; if you're working for money then the tolerance level drops damn fast. At my billing rate, I put enough time into unfuxxing problems caused by the FireStudio to buy a Fireface800 and a couple of decent mics. You can tell I'm a little vexed, no? (grin) On the other hand, I'm now one of the best click removal editors in the business...
Do yourself a favor - any decent store will rent you a pro interface for a reasonable sum of money. Check out an RME Fireface, a Metric Halo or an Apogee Ensemble on a couple of projects & see if you think the quality difference is worth the bucks.
Caveat: I've been a pro engineer of one kind or another since 1983 - this doesn't mean I don't make mistakes but I've learned to avoid most of the common ones.
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