Th e main difference between firewire 400 and 800 is the rate of data transfer speed 400 mbps and 800 mbps respectively bit depth. The key difference between firewire and usb is that firewire is intended for devices working with a lot more data things like camcorders, dvd players and digital audio equipment. You wont find many companies who make a bigger range of interfaces than german stalwarts rme, whose lineup incorporates everything from oldschool expansion cards to the thoroughly politically incorrect pink ladyface model the companys fireface 400 and 800 models were some of the most popular options in the firewire interface market, but as. Firewire, or ieee 94, is another connection type that was popular for a while, but has kind of gone away over the last few years. I would like to know if you guys have any suggestion of equipment, cards, adapters, laptops windows that could make it possible for me to use my audio device with a new laptop model, without losing transfer speed or. Is there a way to connect a firewire audio interface to a. Long story short, firewire works at a constant and fast rate, while usb sends data in bursts. There is no difference in terms of audio quality, just writeread speed.
Custom design tool most items are in stock and can ship today from wichita, ks. That being said, a 7200rpm hdd is not capable of writing fast enough to let thunderbolt or usb 3 operate at full speed, so the difference between the top two is only on an ssd. Ps2 usb adpater,usb male to ps2 female splitter mouse keyboard ps2 converter extension cable,kvm barcode scanner ps2 to usb. All ways to connect fireface 400 firewire to modern. Firewire and usb are simply not compatible in any way, shape, or form. In general, firewire devices support a higher bandwidth than usb 2. Most of what i found was comparisons to usb 2 or tests done before macs had usb 3 builtin. The pros and cons of firewire vs usb firewire has long been a standard for both audio and video interfacing. An unofficial community to discuss apple devices and software, including news, rumors, opinions and analysis pertaining to the company. Therefore, it is now possible to manufacture a usb 3.
Additionally, custom built designs are available, and prototypes can be available within a day in most cases. The stock kernel on most consumer devices dont have robust otg support as the most commonly used gizmo is a flash drive. Below are some of the common pros and cons for using a device with firewire. Its more of a question of if a portable, or desktop for that matter usb 3. Going with my existing firewire 800 drives and the thunderbolt to firewire adapter or usb 3 drives. Try a firewire interface for lowerlatency monitoring while recording. Usb3 is faster, up to about 5gb per second as opposed to about 800mb per second for firewire 800 3. This occurred even though firewire 400 and 800 are faster than previous usb technologies not including 3. Implementing firewire costs a little more than usb, which led to the adoption of usb as the standard for connecting. Also, since firewire is pretty much a dead end technology, dont expect any. Many audio related manufacturers seem to be avoiding the pcipcie bus due to interference. Its important to check which protocol your computers ports support before purchasing peripherals such as an audio interface to ensure correct compatibility. I do music production so either i get the 512 and can store my system files, and samples all on the internal drive, or i get the 256gb and store my samples on an external ssd.
Many new usbfirewire pro audio are eligible for free shipping. T he number of samples of a sound that are taken per second to represent audio digitally. Firewire audio interfaces send multichannel digital audio in and out of your computer. While any of the interfaces weve covered so far are more than capably of producing professional results theres higher class of audio interfaces that we have yet to cover. There are three popular versions of the usb and these are usb 1.
The main difference between the two is that firewire is made to handle more data than usb, particularly audio and visual information. For example, the 2016 apple macbook pro models each feature thunderbolt 3 ports as the only method of. Usbs work on an acknak protocol, while firewire uses a dma transfer protocol. Ieee 94b2002 increased the speed over copper to 800mbs mode, but required a 9conducto. The fellows from focusrite dont recommend using a firewire x usb 3.
A usb network relies on a single host at the top of the tree to control the network. A firewire audio interface connects with a firewire 400 or 800 connection and is comparable to usb 2. In the end, it boils down to the device you own and what it supports. I did searches online and really didnt come up with much in the way of current data or test. If your using an iosenabled device, it will connect to the audio interface using usb. This is the amount of bits of information in a sample, it directly corresponds to the resolution of a sample. After speaking with various interface designers, it seems that both usb 2 and firewire 400800 are equally capable of handling in excess of 16 channels of simultaneous audio which, of course, would be well over the top for your current needs, while usb 3 is considerably faster than firewire and can. A firewire device can communicate with any other node at any time, subject to network conditions. Yeah, speed definitely isnt the only concern with audio interfaces etc. The major problem presuming the cable does work and usb audio is possible is that the kernel needs to be able to enable usb otg at the same time as charging. I understand that it is premature to expect finding usb 3.
The popularity of usb 2 and usb 3 devices slowed adoption of firewire, resulting in the slow decline of the connection. In the case of the t410, it is kind of cumbersome since the usb port is at the back of the machine on the left, the expresscard34 slot is in the front of the right side. I would like to connect it to a firewire audio interface. Ieee94 its only firewiretm if its implemented with an appleapproved chipset in a mac makes a different approach to a serial bus than usb does. Both methods use not only different hardware, but different software as well. Bottom line, a 2010 imac simply has no way to take any advantage of usb3. Call our gear experts now for help with your purchase. A usb audio interface is an excellent choice for mobile recording as the interface draws its power from the computer via the usb cable. Without getting long winded, with the advent of usb 3.
Firewire and usb share a number of characteristics but differ in some important ways. We observe all these peripherals out there when we face a purchasing decision. In practice this is quite sufficient for 4 channels of 24 bit audio at 48khz sample frequency. Its still a great option if you have a mac and dont want to pay thunderbolt prices, or if youre planning on recording in a large studio with a lot of gear. Thunderbolt 3 supports usb, firewire and thunderbolt devices via adapters. What is the main difference between firewire and usb. They differ particularly in data transfer speed with usb 1.
Ieee 941995 the spec that apple trademarked as firewire, was introduced in 1994 with speeds up to 400mbs. The answer is largely no, for the following reasons. Get the best price and selection of new usbfirewire pro audio at musicians friend. Your usbpower cable have to loop in front of the optical drive and microphoneheadphone combo jack.
1250 1270 557 481 755 1058 833 914 570 269 793 966 1311 634 1190 1356 877 50 736 1077 1390 144 85 13 947 364 1013 373 720 74 1362 18 1454 365 835 366 1328 103