Edirol FA-66 Review
June 21st, 2006 by 
ScottyP
Your sound is only as good as your sound card. I decided I needed a card that provided more than the cheaper alternatives I had used before. Since I have a varied arsenal of gear with different connections, I needed a variety of ins and outs. I like my studio to be mobile too, just in case things get a little crazy and I have to pack up and leave town. The FA-66 from Edirol (a subsidiary of Roland focused mainly on sound gear) met my paranoid yet demanding niche. The price came up to about 550$ CAD after tax (considered expensive for the penny pinching geardo crowd) but none the less it stacked up to being a worthy investment.
The Edirol Fa-66 provides an incredible amount of features for such a small size. There are a total of 4 analog inputs consisting of 2 XLR/TRS combo jacks with mic preamps with phantom power on the front face of the card, and a pair of RCA inputs on the rear of the card. The analog outputs consist of 4 balanced TRS outputs. There is also a headphone out with an independent volume control, although it is not independently routed, as its output is the same as the first TRS stereo pair. The FA-66 also includes stereo optical s/pdif in and out. At 24-bit/96 Khz all the ins and outs can be used simultaneously, while at 192 Khz only the analog I/Os are available. There are also MIDI in and out ports. One notable issue I should point out regarding the wealth of connections on this card: due the small form factor, if you have every in and out used, it can get quite cluttered.
There are a few things about the FA-66 that really set it apart from other cards in its class. One is the analog limiter. Since the limiter is before the d/a conversion in the signal path, there is an extra layer of protection against peaking signals while recording. This is especially useful when the card is being used in a mobile situation where an external limiter is not available. The response is quite soft, so don’t expect it to attenuate point blank gunfire, but for vocals and speech it is quite effective. Another useful feature of the Edirol card which I have not seen in other cards is a ground connection. I haven’t had to use this but if you really want to ground the card for some reason, you can. The second TRS input also features a hi-z option, which is useful for guitar recording.
The built-in preamps sound good for a card of this class. They are clean and flat and the noise floor is very acceptable, with little hiss except at the highest volumes. There is nothing really remarkable about the preamps, but they do work well, and I have had no problems with the various mics I have used with it. For a mobile solution, they are quite satisfactory. The sensitivity is quite a bit better than cheaper USB based external sound cards with built in pre amps I have used.
The software shipped with this card is VERY limited. It is nothing more than an application which changes the latency settings in ASIO. There is no software mixer, the card relays on ASIO 2.0 applications to provide routing and other options. In OS X, the card uses core audio to handle all its needs, which means you don’t even have to install drivers. In practise, I haven’t had much of a problem with this, and the hands on controls available on the card itself cover most basic options (such as mixing the direct monitor signal with the output signal, a very useful control).
The overall quality of the Fa-66 is excellent. Its all metal exterior shell feels nearly indestructible. The hue is a deep shade of metallic red, with a detailed diagram of the audio path printed on the top. This device is both attractive and utilitarian at the same time. It is quite light considering its sturdy construction. Overall this Japanese made card feels very solid, and could probably survive those tough gigs.
Overall I have been very pleased with this card, while the price was a bit on the steep side, the quality and reliability you get make it well worth it. I seriously think it is worth spending more for a sound card such as this one because cheaper (usually USB based) external sound cards often come with serious compromises. If you need more ins and outs, you might be interested in the fa-66’s big brother, the fa-101 (with 10 ins and 10 outs).
What’s good: Sturdy metal construction, a wealth of connection options for a card of this size, reliable drivers, efficient on board controls, good preamps
What’s not good: Lack of an independent software mixer, small form factor means the card can get cluttered when many connections are present.
Who needs it: Anyone who needs a full featured, reliable, external sound card that is extremely portable.
For more information check out http://www.edirol.com/
Posted in Sound Interfaces, USB and Firewire sound modules | 
23 Comments »
September 26th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
I want to DJ with the Edirol FA-66. I am concerned because you mentioned that the headphone jack is not independently routed. Can you use the 2nd set of outputs for the mains, so that you can monitor a separate mix in the headphones?
Thanks,
JH
September 28th, 2006 at 5:20 pm
Yes you can, you can use output 1 as the headphone output, and outputs 3 + 4 as a second stereo pair. Or you can also use outputs 5 + 6 (digital) if you are routing to something that supports digital in.
November 21st, 2006 at 6:06 pm
I actually used the second set of outputs for the headphones, and the 1st set for the mains – but I am getting channel bleedover on my cued channel.
September 29th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Hi
I have a powered pair of speakers connected via a powered subwoofer connected to my computer, Most speaker systems connected to computers are like this. At the moment I have to use the headphone output to drive the speakers. The input to the speakers is a 3.5mm stereo plug. I tried using the outputs at the back but they didnt seem to work in stereo even when I tool to seperate lines and fed them in to the minijack. Please advise best way to drive speakers like this.
thanks
paul
October 17th, 2007 at 9:43 am
hi i use ableton live in our band and my main want for this box is to be able to have all or most of my music tracks running out of the stereo output into a PA or whatnot and then to have a click track running out of a seperate output into a headphone amp so we all stay in time will this box integrate and do what i want with little to no latency?
October 17th, 2007 at 9:48 am
Hello
Ben, did you check the position of the direct monitoring mix knob on the front of the box? To monitor only what’s coming from your computer it should be over hard left.
Paul, it sounds like the speakers you have were designed to be driven from a headphone socket. If they’re the only sound monitors from your system, I’d suggest routing the sound output from the built-in headphone socket on your computer and using the fa-66 purely as an input device.
I was having terrible latency problems, nearly half a second (approx. 500ms) whilst software monitoring a mic through the fa-66 using a G4 Mac Mini running OS X 10.4.10 and Logic Express.
After reading again on the Edirol site the claims of ultra-low latency, I thought I’d re-read the manual and found that problems can be caused when the Mac rewakens from sleep.
A quick rebooting later and the latency had all but gone! I just thought I’d post this cos as silly as it sounds, my first port of call for troubleshooting wasn’t the manual; it was the internet.
Happy recording!
Guy
October 17th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
On PC, I get even lower latency when I use the ASIO4ALL drivers with the edirol, I can get as low as 4ms combined (2 in and 2out).. Although it is more cpu heavy.
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:30 am
i was wondering if this would be good for my cpu. will it bring it down and let me use alot more keys and stuff for my fruity loops?
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:12 pm
it will use much more cpu, so if you have performance issues it will make them worse. When mixing down tunes I’d suggest increasing the buffer size so you can use more fx.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
[...] sure” stage in this process, I decided to look for some reviews, and stumbled across this one, which turned out to be written by a friend of mine. Too funny. I mentioned it to him, and he said [...]
November 6th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
I was wondering, if you play DD5.1 or 5.1 DTS track on the pc does the FA-66 support passtrough it throug the Spdif out?
have a speaker system with optical in, and it has a DD5.1-DTS decoder.
November 17th, 2008 at 10:13 am
I just bought a FA-66 but unfortunately cant set it up. This is because my laptop does not have a Firewire input.
Is there anyone who has faced the same problem and is there a solution to this problem other than buying a new laptop which has a firewire input.
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:58 am
Tanjinul,
Does your laptop have an ExpressCard slot? There are ExpressCard adaptors that will add FireWire ports to your laptop.
If you have neither built-in FireWire nor an ExpressCard slot — like the new Apple MacBook — then you are out of luck. You will need to either get a laptop with a FireWire port or an ExpressCard slot — the MacBook Pro has both — or exchange your FA-66 for a USB audio interface.
November 28th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Hello!
First of all sorry for my English level, I’ll try to do my best.
I Have the Fa- 66 and edirol MA 15D monitors.
The thing is that i don’t understand how to connect them one to another.
I know that the only direct monitor outputs of FA 66 are 1 and 2.
But the problem is that on Ma 15D monitors the inputs are RCA and mini Phone Jack.
Should i use adapters ? Or maybe use the coaxial/optical in of monitors? How?
I’ll be very happy if you respond to me.
Thanks.
November 29th, 2008 at 10:04 am
If you have the FA-66, just get an optical cable and connect the output from there to the input in the speakers. That is by far the cleanest option, both in terms of cable-clutter and audio clarity.
That’s what I do anyway with my identical setup…
December 9th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Greetings. I have a MOTU 2408 mk3 which connects to a MOTU PCI card which you install in your computer’s PCI slot. They call it an audio wire device. I don’t have the PCI card anymore, it went with my G4 tower when I sold it. My present computer is an iMac G5 which has no PCI expansion slots. So now I have a MOTU 2408 mk3 box which I can’t use. Unless.. I got an Edirol FA-66 and tried to connect the 2408 to it. That way I’d be able to use the 2408 ins and outs and connect the FA-66 by firewire to the computer. Can this be done?
I’ll be using Garageband and Logic software. Thanks if you have an answer.
January 19th, 2009 at 3:00 am
Hi, i would like to have this one for a usage with my laptop.
The FA-66 is comptatible with the 4 pin Firewire connector, (6 /4 cable) ??
Thanks
Marc
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Marc,
My FA-66 came with both a 4 pin and a 6 pin cable.
I do have a question myself as well. It’s along the same lines as Lafayette.
I’m using Ableton to run loops with my band. I have outputs 1 and 2 running the loops in stereo and 3 and 4 are the click going to the band. The click is coming from an Aux send so I can control the level that goes to the band vs what comes to just drums. I have the actual click in outputs 5 and 6. I’d like to just be able to hear all of the outputs in the headphone jack, but it seems that all that comes out is Outputs 1 and 2.
Am I stuck like this or can I route all of the outputs from the device through the headphone jack?
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Hmm I don’t think there is a way you could do it without having the click come out of output 1 + 2. The headphone jack only outputs 1 + 2.
You’d need an external mixer (cheap DJ mixer would do the trick) to do this without having the clicks leak into the loop signal, as far as I can tell. You’d listen to the monitor out on the mixer and have all the channels turned up on it (loop and click)
The routing options on the FA-66 are pretty limited.
May 4th, 2009 at 3:36 am
Hi, Im new to this and just wanted to make this clear, I have my monitors pluged into Edirol, if I am record in sonar, will everything I hear (from monitors) loop back and record on the track that im recording on. Can I listen to all tracks and record ? Sorry if this is a dumb Q lol
August 29th, 2009 at 5:17 am
I have just bought the Fa-66. If I get the right adapter I can plug it into my macbook pro? Is it possible to get a MOTU midi to usb converter and plug my usb dj interface into this sound card???
December 1st, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Sascha, yes you can manually adjust with a blend knob (the direct monit knob) how much of the microphone’s signal or how much playback from the PC signal gets sent through the monitors. Or you can disable the soft control so that it’s only playback coming through the monitors.
Horto, it should plug into the macbook pro’s firewire connector without any issues. The FA66 doesn’t have a usb connector so you’d need to plug your usb dj interface into the macbook.
January 18th, 2010 at 9:24 am
Hi, i have a presonus bluetube dual channel tube mic pre. i use it with an 8track recorder. i have been looking at the fa-66 because if i decided to change to a computer recording setup it would be handier to have a preamp that could also connect to the comp. i could use the analog outs to go to my 8track and if using a computer i could use the firewire. would this work yes?
also i would like to know about the mic preamps? are they good quality? would they be much of an upgrade to the presonus bluetube? if so how much of an upgrade?
I’m new to recording gear so i appreciate any replies!
Thanks!
Dean