Another opinion request

[harphunt]

I think I've made my mind up, but I thought I'd ask those with more experience (I have no local guru) than I. I just received a laptop from work with no firewire input. I thought I would just get the Echo Indigo IO CardBus and use my Behringer ub802, going line in (I never purchased a pci card), as I have on my desktop.

The question is: Is there any reason I should look at USB instead of mixer to Indigo?

Thanks in advance

 

[harphunt]

I really was looking for an answer. I'm not sure about making the purchase.

Thanks in advance,

harphunt

 

[dgatwood]

I wouldn't recomment buying a Cardbus audio card. Either buy a CardBus FireWire card and a FireWire audio interface or buy a USB audio interface.

The next laptop you buy probably won't have CardBus, and the one after that definitely won't. The standard is slowly being phased out in favor of a new standard based on PCI-Express, which will not be physically or electrically compatible with prior CardBus cards.

A $10 FireWire CardBus card (+$10 shipping)

Spend as little money as possible on CardBus hardware. FireWire and USB aren't likely to go away. CardBus is almost guaranteed to do so. I figure maybe two years... three max.