Question about TASCAM FW-1082

[arturoto]

Hi,

I am going to buy the TASCAM FW 1082, becasue I don't have the money to buy the M-Audio Project Mix.
I need to record a band live with 8 tracks that will be recorded in my computer through the firewire as 8 independent sound tracks in the Cubase SW that comes with the system. I have read in several places that I need to have a bigger 6-pin Firewire card in my computer in order to do so. I can't understand that point because I thought the 4 pin small connector was exactly the same and had the same bandwitdth.
Do you know if I can use my 4-pin computer FW port or do I need to add a FW board cost to my budget? I have a single 4-pin firewire port in my computer.

Thanks very much
Arturo

[Kevin Deschwazi]

When the FW-1082 was reviewed in SOS (here) the reviewer tried it out on his laptop (using the 4 pin connector ) and it worked fine.

I don't know if you'd run into problems long term though, the bottom line is Tascam advises against it so it's a risk.

If you have a PCI slot going spare PCI firewire cards are really cheap these days. When I bought my 1082 I got an Adaptec fireconnect for about $20 off ebay (my comp wasn't firewire capable). It's worked flawlessly. They say that cards with a TI chipset are best for use with the Tascam.

The Tascam forums are a bit slow but there's a lot of good info there:

http://tascamforums.com/index.php?showforum=57

[crosstudio]

I've got the FW-1884 and I've always used the 4-pin thats on my laptop and never had a problem. my understanding of the 6 pin is that the last 2 pins carry power so that you can connect devices without needed an external power source (like USB).

btw, i've used several different laptops over the years, currently I have a Dell Inspiron E1705 with dual 2ghz processor, 2GB of RAM and 80gb HD.