[mlange]

OK - Success - here's the whole skinny:

First and foremost, there is nothing wrong with the 2626 - the guys at M-Audio tech support have gone out-of-their-way to follow through with this testing

A sine wave, by it's very nature, does not have any transients whatsoever..... therefore, when measuring a 1K +4dBu sine wave signal into many "classic" analog VU meters, this will result in a 0 reading. These meters present the average level of the input signal.

The identical signal, (again, a sine wave - no transients [ie, peaks], right?) injected into PT yields -18dbfs, as the channel's segment meters are peak meters. The peak meter has absolutely no transient peak material to detect.

Now taking the identical signal path, we'll use program material - say a bass guitar - and adjust it for a nominal 0 level on a "classic" analog VU meter. When this signal is inputted into PT, the PT channel meter will display something fairly close to the analog meter's level.

There is no issue with the metering levels: the difference in the tests is the program material's transients. Sine waves have no spiked transients, and in this example, our bass guitar certainly does.

And the above principles held true on every system we tested, including an fully-loaded HD3 rig. The HD3's headroom values were virtually identical to the ProFire 2626's. This speaks quite highly to the 2626's design.

While various metering plugs (Bomb Factory, Waves, etc) may *look* like an analog VU meter, the user must select average, rms, peak, etc. in order to change the response style/curve of the meter. Regardless of the interface (how the meter *looks*), do recognize that the meter's scale determines its' ballistics.

The other intermittent issue with our 2626 was almost assuredly caused by it being man-handled by the carrier and not a reflection of the build-quality. M-Audio's done well by me.

As much time as I've spent with ours chasing this down, I can truly say that the 2626 feels solid & very well built. The software's been completely stable, too.

Hope this helps - I'm sold .... and very happy.

Now - FINALLY - back to the recording