Realizing that naming interfaces after letters from a dead language (Greek) wasn't something the public would find catchy, Lexicon releases a more powerful interface with a more powerful pseudo-punctuation mark in its title, the I•ONIX FW810S. The marketing genius is that the dot-in-lieu-of-hyphen is actually one of the least impressive features on the new firewire interface.

"Oh yeah?" you say, ears skeptically perked. "What could be better than a dot in the middle of a word?" Well, how about a dbx high-voltage, ultra-low-noise mic pre, Pantheon II reverbs and a powerful software mixing board with dbx dynamics and hardware monitor reverb? Try that on for size!

With eight ins and ten outs, the FW810S encourages your audio signal's entrance while figuratively ensuring that in the event of a fire -- or the misguided folly of someone fabricating rumors concerning a fire -- your audio signal has a sufficient number of routes to escape. Plus, there are dbx mic pres on every channel for simply the best timbre and tonality they could muster.

And muster they shall! With dbx Type IV conversion, digital recordings retain more dynamic range even at levels too high to handle. Type IV conversion gives more headroom for more detail and less clipping.

Lexicon also includes a software mixer with dbx dynamics built in -- compressors, gates, limiters, EQs and such. All level adjustments are processed on the FW810S, freeing your computer up to process other things, like online poker or Gregg Alexander's #1 fan site on Angelfire.