Hangs Windows Computers on Standby or Hibernate

Hangs virtually all Windows boxes on Standby or Hibernate (power save/suspend). Since it's USB-powered, it's designed & marketed to laptop users. But laptops are particularly dependent upon power-save, especially when running on battery.

I've tried the US-122 on 7 Windows computers, 3 of them being laptops, and on all of them it hung Windows (XP, 2000, and 98) on standby AND hibernate (both on all). Mac users don't seem to have the problem. But if you're a Mac user, there are now superior Firewire-based units which are bus-powerable. Unfortunately, there are apparently no Windows laptops which have bus power to included firewire. And PCMCIA firewire cards don't supply bus power because the specification doesn't produce enough juice. So if you don't want to tote around an external power supply, Windows users are stuck with USB if they want bus power.

You can only learn about this problem (I call it a defect) in forums. That's because Tascam doesn't specifically talk about the problem in the literature. There's no way they couldn't have known about the problem, so not including it in the literature shows me it was intentionally left out to try to keep people from returning units (it worked in my case). There are a lot of threads of new US-122 users trying to figure out exactly what's going on. I know it took me awhile to figure it out. Tascam took down their own hosted forums right before the US-122 came out. I believe this was intentional to prevent word from spreading about this design flaw. Again, if so, the tactic worked for me: I went past the return period thinking that it was just my old motherboard, as I had planned to build a new computer anyway. 6 more computers later, and having spent hours troubleshooting this problem and researching it online, I know what I'm telling you now: that Tascam didn't solve, and arguably covered up or at least ignored, this problem.

I bought this intending to use it not only as a recording interface, but as an upscale "stereo component-like" sound card next to my stereo for easy access. That never happened. I need standby and hibernate. I don't want to leave my computer on all the time or turn everything off every time I walk away from my computer. And I simply can't unplug the thing before every time I go away and replug it every time I come back.

Tech support is worthless. I called twice, where I was directed to leave a voicemail both times. They never called back. I also sent an email demanding that they forward it to management, demanding that they upgrade the drivers to make them TRULY Windows-compatible, but I got no reply on that either, and despite releasing an updated driver, it didn't address this issue and to this day, to my knowledge there is no specific acknowledgement of this problem in any official Tascam literature.

People who do get to talk to Tascam support report extremely unpleasant experiences, and lack of resolutions on top of the attitudes and lack of empathy. Frontier Design, which designed the box for Tascam, I've heard does acknowledge people but has no fix and won't fix the problem.

The US-122L is replacing the US-122, adding a 96 Khz sample rate (which may not be full duplex) and USB 2.0, and making the knobs wide and nearly flush with the box. I suspect it will have the same hanging problem. But even if not, why would you want to deal with them as a company? Also, even though this product is already released, I can't get info on the hanging problem or even whether 96 Khz is full duplex. Other companies are much more forthcoming with information about their products--and including more stable drivers, or at least acknowledging and fixing problems. Why inflict this company upon yourself?

Don't get me wrong--Tascam used to have a good reputation. But they seemed to have a shift in management around the time the US-122 came out, as they were getting rid of their consumer analog recording line. That's when they took down their forums, and went into extreme penny-pinching/bean-counting mode, which apparently included tech support, which seems impotent to effect change.

From a physical perspective, this was the perfect box for me. I wanted to love it, but I hate it. It had everything I wanted, and nothing I didn't (except for MIDI, which it does have, but people report more problems, particularly latency, with MIDI thru this and other combo audio interface than with dedicated MIDI devices). The gain is a bit weak. The self-noise of the preamps is decent, in the mid-range of quiet, and that's a separate issue from gain, because amplifying a noisy signal doesn't help matters much. The box has balanced 1/4" inputs if I wanted to get a fancier external preamp like the M-Audio DMP3. But the Windows hanging problem means it's only worthwhile for short-term recording projects. Not for using it as a soundcard and full-on computer "audio interface".

I know you've read "I'll never buy [such and such] brand ever again." But no, I really mean it with this. If you knew all the troubles I've gone through to try to make this device work for me (i.e. not hang Windows), you'd understand. You just don't know the energy spent, and I'm so resentful of Tascam not being forthcoming in literature or even calling me back when it didn't even give me the opportunity of waiting on hold for a tech support agent (I would have waited). If it were one person making and selling these things, you would, in my opinion, call this person dishonest. But this is a company. So, again in my opinion, there are dishonest people or at best severely incompetent people running the show over there now.

Don't think my unit was defective. It's not. It's all of them. The Windows driver is simply not fully compatible with Windows. You'll notice Windows warns that the driver is uncertified. Now you have a good idea why they never tried to get the driver certified; because it can't pass Microsoft's standards to be declared as compatible with Windows. There will apparently never be a driver upgrade to make it not hang Windows.

I'm extremely skilled with Windows hardware troubleshooting. "Advanced" audio devices have caused me more grief with computers than any other computer problems I've ever had all put together and multiplied a few times. In fact, I learned how to work on computers by troubleshooting troublesome, expensive audio cards back in the 486 days. The problem is just part of the design, and can't be overcome. I HAVE seen an errant report of a Windows user who gets their computer to not hang on Standby or Hibernate with the US-122, but these are by far the exception.

In my opinion, a class action lawsuit should be brought against Tascam for falsely advertising that this device is Windows compatible. Although they urge you to turn off ACPI (advanced power management), it is simply ridiculous to say you can no longer use Standby OR Hibernate ever again. I've never heard of ANY other audio interface which crashes Windows on these modes.

Edirol is reputed to have the most stable drivers in the industry; M-Audio also has a good reputation, and others do as well, but I haven't tried them. I've also sworn off Digidesign, which produced drivers for Windows 2000/XP for non-Pro Tools software which simply didn't work for me on multiple computer either, despite hours of working and no help from their forum and not wanting to PAY to talk to their tech support department.

Both Digidesign and Tascam (at least with the US-122) seem much more oriented towards Macintosh computers. But if they're unwilling to make their devices work in Windows, they shouldn't produce Windows drivers or market to Windows users at all, like Metric Halo.

I am eyeing the E-Mu 0404USB which unfortunately requires an outboard power supply. The Edirol UA-25 is to the US-122L was to the Edirol's venerable UA-5 (which is what I *should* have gotten originally). A device is only as good as its drivers; remember that.