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Minuk21
New member
Is there any difference between the two?
mjbphotos
Moderator
Firewire can typically handle more signals (tracks) at a time and uses less computer resources.
TetraFish
Well-known member
phriq
Freon Productions
Yep. I don't want to get into all the specific transfer rates as there are ALOT of variables that effect it, but Firewire is considerably faster than USB. How many tracks do you plan to record simultaneously? Personally, if your looking to be able to record drums and have something with 8 simultaneous tracks, I would go Firewire. If you only need 1 or 2 tracks, USB should be just fine. It just really depends on your needs.
You should fill us in on some of the specifics you would like to be able to do with an interface. Hope this helps!
Shadow_7
New member
Firewire has greater bus speed (more tracks) and more available power (better phantom power?). But then there's those driver issues. And a lot of boxes don't come with firewire ports these days, so that's an extra expense one might need to factor in to the total costs.
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Minuk21
New member
So pretty much firewire is capable of handling more tracks and is faster? Also does the sound quality change between usb and firewire
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glomu
New member
You should think about USB and firewire solutions as different ways of communication between the computer and the sound card. USB uses more system resources, whereas firewire is usually able to handle more tracks according to many users. Having said that, you should be able track quite a few number of channels at the same time both with USB and firewire. Apart from this difference, both are the same when it comes to sound quality. In fact, neither of these have any effect on sound quality, because they have nothing to do with sound quality 
There is absolutely no difference between the two in this sense.
There is absolutely no difference between the two in this sense.
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TimOBrien
New member
1s and 0s do not have quality. It's just a data pipe.
usb1 does 2 channels in/out.
usb2 does 12-16 channels.
Whenever it finally comes out, usb3 may come up to fw400 speeds. No one knows yet.
Firewire400 does over 100
Firewire800 twice that.
FW1600 and 3200 specs have been approved but really who needs that big a pipe?
What IS handy with firewire is that you can daisy-chain harddrives (I do) or processor boxes on it with plenty of room to stream the data.
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glomu
New member
Actually, quality comes into question only once we have a few missing 0s and 1s 
Shadow_7
New member
Missing 1's and 0's, like 16 bit vs. 24 bit. And maxing out at 48kHz instead of 96kHz. There's also the power thing for mics that need phantom power. Not enough of it, can affect the results achieved with said gear. And the USB bus is a little wimpy for bus power. But if you're not using phantom powered mics or use external phantom power, a non-issue in a lot of cases.
dastrick
huh???
Yep. What he said.
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