Digidesign have given the most affordable interface in their Pro Tools range a makeover, with a new case, new preamps and some additional features.

In the three and a half years since the original M Box was introduced, it has become one of Digidesign's most successful products. A simple stereo-in, stereo-out USB audio interface, the M Box allowed anyone with a Mac or PC to call themselves a Pro Tools user without breaking the bank; and its clever circuitry meant that the Focusrite-designed mic preamps could derive phantom power parasitically from the host machine's USB port, making it a truly go-anywhere system.

Recently, the M Box has faced increasingly stiff competition. There are plenty of affordable interfaces around which use the higher-bandwidth Firewire protocol, including those made by Digidesign's partner company M Audio, which are now compatible with Pro Tools. M Audio and other companies such as Edirol and Terratec also make USB devices that are much cheaper than the M Box. A change of plan from Digidesign seemed inevitable, and many people expected them to turn to USB 2 or Firewire to achieve a higher channel count, or perhaps just to drop the M Box altogether and extend their support for M Audio hardware to include USB interfaces such as the Fast Track Pro and Mobile Pre USB. (Or how about a PCMCIA card along the lines of Echo's Indigo IO? Please?) Instead, they've replaced the M Box with another USB 1.1 device which offers an almost identical feature set: the M Box 2.