Echo Audiofire 8

Sky Blue Lou

Well-known member
After many years of sitting idle I am looking to fire up a new recording computer. My old box was a quick for its day XP machine with mirrored hard drives and Midiman and Echo Audio digital I/O converters and whatnot. (Shit I can't remember the lingo...) Anyway the Audiofire was a very nice piece and rather pricey. I'd like to reuse it in a new machine (as well as the Midiman but the Echo was better.) The potential problem is that the products are no longer produced or supported, they predate Windows10 and it's Firewire!


Anyone else travel this road and what was your solution? I know Firewire PCIe cards are available but not sure if the old drivers will work in Win10.


Thanks in advance.
 
Firewire PCIe cards won't be a problem. If you do have issues with Firewire and Win10, there are a couple of things in the BIOS you can turn off or disable that might help. C-States, Intel Speed step, enhanced speed, power save management... stuff like that.

The latest driver for the Echo works with Win8, so there's a good chance it will work with Win10. If it doesn't work right out of the box, then you can reinstall it using Win8 compatibility mode.
 
The problem of 'legacy' FW kit running on W10 crops up a lot on SoS forum. As Chilli says, all sorts of workarounds exists but it seems to this simple valve amp jockey that the easiest solution is a decently specc'ed Win 7 64 machine?

Yes, you will want to keep it off the web (although I have two W7 PCs and regularly use them on the internet and none of the dire predictions have come to pass) W7 64 can run SSDs. I am typing this on a Lenovo T510 and it has a 4pin FW port and since the Echo is mains powered should be fine? This T510 is W10 but was originally W7.

I also have a W7/64 desktop with an AMD Black 3G 6 core with 6G ram and that is pretty damn quick.

I understand at least one illustrious contributer still runs an XP machine for legacy kit?

Dave.
 
Thanks guys - great info. I do have a copy of Win7 so I can go either way. If 10 fails I'll just scrub it and start over. I am starting with a refurbed I7 dual core ex-business machine packed with extra memory. A friend is in the biz and took a bunch in trade so short money. I won't be going online other than to download the newest version of Reaper and any other software updates and apps.
 
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