Top.Level

why not just record onto your hard drive?

cot damn im on a roll busting your chops today!
 

Because if you're doing true professional recording, and don't have a SATA RAID/SCSI/Raptor drive array, there's a very good chance that you could have performance issues. PLUS, you could do a mixing project on this unit while working with another portion of the project live on the drive. Not only that, but this device doesn't do all the resampling shenanigans that most PCI sound devices do. For example, ALL Creative cards re-sample from the standard 44,100khz sample rate to ~48,000khz. This introduces noise and distortion (although right now I don't care because it's not all that much to notice).
A true "passthrough" recording device like this will not resample your recording, and then when it's done can pass the results direct over USB to your drive. PLUS there's a distinct advantage to mixing and tuning your sound using real knobs versus software, where I apply an effect, then have to undo whatever effect I applied because it didn't sound right.
Plus it's just cool. Shut up you naysayer. Pbpbpbpbpbpb.