Hi
I m looking for a reliable sound card to send Cubase s backing tracks to mixer console on my band s live concerts.
Does anyone here uses this unit for backing tracks aplications? Does this product provide 8 independent analog outupts or does it send outputs in pairs? If yes, are the drivers really reliable ?
My question is - if I have 8 diferent audio tracks in Cubase and I need to send this 8 sounds to the external mixer console, will this steinberg unit do the job?
Yes - The MR816 has 8 independant, balanced analog outputs (as well as 8 ADAT outputs).
As far as drivers goes, this depends on your operating system. Fine with Windows-7; not sure about XP or Windows-8, and I have no idea about Apple machines.
I would add also it depends on your FireWire chipset, make sure its a Texas Instruments.
With the right hard/software it’s a very reliable unit.
I’m not sure I’d invest in a FireWire device though now, check out the UR824 I use this unit as my master and it’s worked flawlessly on 3 different machines.
MC
Well, there are two things (pros and cons) to consider here. USB (the UR series) is more common, while Firewire (MR series) has been replaced by Thunderbolt on Macs (but is till widely used in the video field).
On the other hand, because USB is so widely used is also it’s biggest drawback. It has to share the ports with all kinds of stuff (hard-drives, printers, scanners, keyboards, mice, etc.*). It likely that the Firewire device gets the port all to itself. I also feel that Firewire is a bit more stable than USB.
I currently lean towards Firewire as the best alternative. The fact that the protocol is not as widely used being an important factor.
EDIT:
I own both the UR824 and two MR 816’s and I can categorically say there’s absolutely nothing wrong with USB for audio in 2014.
If you’d have said to me 5 years ago I’d be running my studio from an USB interface I’d have laughed …
Things change 
FireWire is a dead protocol , it’s still in use from legacy users but it’s EOL
MC
FWIW, I use an RME UFX with two MR816s attached to it. It has USB and FireWire connectors but RME recommend using the USB connection.