Hi, it's Annabelle. I have a question for you, and I was wondering if you might have the answer for me. I have purchased a MOTU 896HD between 2003 and 2004, and it seems I have run into this strange situation. I just now discovered that channel 1 went out on my MOTU. When the gain is turned all the way up, all I can hear is a buzz or a hum. The interesting part is, when the gain is turned all the way down on Channel 1, I get this sound of crackling static, like the kind you sometimes hear on a TV set. What's up with that? Funny thing is, the rest of the channels 2-8 work just fine. I've tried everything I can, but I'm wondering how this happened. Is it because I've had this interface for a few years now? When I talked to Dan at Guitar Center last night, he said that it's a possibility that one of the channel components failed simply because it's old. What do I do? Is there a better interface than this one? Is there an easy solution to this problem? I want to be able to record with a stereo pair of mics. Here are the current configurations of my home studio. Hardware: MusicXPC M6 Laptop Computer Lacie D2 Quadra External Hard Drive (1TB) Roland Fantom XR Sound Machine Kawai CP150 Digital Piano Akai MPK25 Portable MIDI Controller Radikal Technologies Sac2.2 Mixing Machine MOTU 896HD Audio Interface SPL Pass EQ Focusrite Red3 Dual Compressor And Limiter Lexicon MX400XL Effects Machine Furman PL8 Power Conditioner Canon MF6500 Copy Machine Viewplus Tiger Professional Braille Printer EasyBraille Portable Braille Display Software: Windows XP Professional 2003 32bit, with Service pack 3 JAWS (Job Access With Speech) 10.0.1178U Screenreader Sonar 8 Producer Edition Caketalking 8 For Sonar 8 Sibelius 5.2.5 Music Notation Software Sibelius Access 1RC Accessibility Scripts Lime 9.0 Music Notation Software Goodfeel 3.1 Braille Music Translation Software Tiger Professional Braille Translation Suite Native Instruments Kontakt 4 Eastwest Play Virtual Instruments Spectrasonics Sample Libraries Spectrasonics Trilogy Spectrasonics StylusRMX Atmosphere Deluxe 7.0 Computer Specifications: >Computer Type: Laptop >Machine: MusicProXPC >Model: M6 >Serial Number: TW7TFCCCB8170073 >RAM: 4GB >Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo >CPU Speed: 2.5 GHZ >Internal Hard Drive >Hard Drive Speed: 7200 RPM >Hard Drive Capacity: 250 GB >External Hard Drive: Lacie D2 Quadra >Hard Drive Speed: 7200 RPM >Hard Drive Capacity: 1TB No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.449 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/3407 - Release Date: 01/27/11 19:34:00