Firewire to USB - Thoughts?

S

Sky Blue Lou

Well-known member
I thought I had posted this back along but search results are zero and maybe technology is better. I have a legacy (I guess) Echo Audiofire12 AD/DA converter. Lovely piece, worked great 15 years ago. No longer around or supported. What's the odds of bringing this to life with a converter adapter? And then make it work on a Win10 box!
 
There is a good review on sound on sound's site, dated 2005.

link to SoS

The snag is that if you are running windows, I fear you have a job on. Plenty of firewire adaptors around, but I cannot find any trace of drivers, and at this age, you would probably have to find an XP computer to have any luck. There's sombody on ebay flogging them for around seventy quid in poor condition, and quite a few nice ones at a bit more. Only this week I discovered my 2018 imac was quite happy using a firewire interface with no drivers required at all, so maybe an old mac could be a solution. They were nice, but at nearly 20 years old, they're a bit of a risk really.
 
Thanks Rob. I actually have an XP box. It was the balls in 2008! Currently needs a power supply - I hope that's all. It worked a year ago! I would like to upgrade but didn't want to re-spend all that money from those days!
 
You can't do Firewire to USB so you would need to find a computer with a Firewire port that uses a Texas Instruments chipset. Don't even think about trying to use a Firewire port that doesn't use a TI chip because they just don't work for audio. Older Macs can use a Thunderbolt to Firewire adaptor which apparently works well with certain interfaces but I don't know if you can do the same on a Windows machine.
 
jamesperrett said:
You can't do Firewire to USB so you would need to find a computer with a Firewire port that uses a Texas Instruments chipset. Don't even think about trying to use a Firewire port that doesn't use a TI chip because they just don't work for audio. Older Macs can use a Thunderbolt to Firewire adaptor which apparently works well with certain interfaces but I don't know if you can do the same on a Windows machine.
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Thanks James. A bit beyond my pay grade I'm afraid. The only thing I know about TI is they used to make calculators.
 
TalismanRich said:
There are Firewire 400/800 cards with Win 10 drivers with PCIe. I also see lots of comments for the Win7/81 drivers for the Audiofire 12 saying it's compatible with Win 10.

www.startech.com

3 Port 2b 1a PCI Express FireWire Card - FireWire Cards | Add-on Cards & Peripherals | StarTech.com

3 Port 2b 1a 1394 PCI Express FireWire Card
www.startech.com www.startech.com
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I started to explore that path a couple years ago with a similar (same?) card. I could not figure the drivers out. Maybe I should give that approach another try. Any idea where to find those drivers?
Thanks.
 
Seems like a firewire-on-windows bible here...

Fixing FireWire (IEEE 1394) Problems in Windows 10 and 11. Legacy Firewire Driver, Microsoft Firewire OHCI Legacy Drive, Firewire PCI and PCI E cards and how to install them. David Knarr

Fix FireWire Driver (IEEE 1394) problems Windows 10 and 11. (Also for Windows 7 and 8) Download and Install the Microsoft Firewire OHCI Legacy Drive and Firewire cards. Solve IEEE 1394 Problem in Windows 10 and 11. Written by David Knarr, Studio 1 Productions Inc. Port Orange, FL
www.studio1productions.com www.studio1productions.com
 
Good luck with your Fussywire quest Lou. If you do get running be careful not to put the FW plug in the wrong way round and NEVER 'hot swap'!!

Dave.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Seems like a firewire-on-windows bible here...

Fixing FireWire (IEEE 1394) Problems in Windows 10 and 11. Legacy Firewire Driver, Microsoft Firewire OHCI Legacy Drive, Firewire PCI and PCI E cards and how to install them. David Knarr

Fix FireWire Driver (IEEE 1394) problems Windows 10 and 11. (Also for Windows 7 and 8) Download and Install the Microsoft Firewire OHCI Legacy Drive and Firewire cards. Solve IEEE 1394 Problem in Windows 10 and 11. Written by David Knarr, Studio 1 Productions Inc. Port Orange, FL
www.studio1productions.com www.studio1productions.com
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Nice find! Thank you! Got some reading to do.
 
It's interesting that in the past, the TI chipset cards were the preferred ones, and according to this page, the TI doesn't work well, and the VIA chipset is preferred. Very curious. I wonder what changed to cause this.

It's been years since I fooled with the firewire card in the system at work, but it was a Startech PCI with TI chipset under Win 7. We were running a video camera on a microscope. I think I got that system going around 2012. It was still working when I retired 5 years ago.
 
I've had no success at running an audio interface with the Via Firewire chip in my Dell Precision M4600. I also failed with the O2 Micro chip in a Dell Precision M6700. I've only successfully used this audio interface (a Focusrite Saffire Pro26io) with computers that use TI Firewire chips.

The Via and O2 chips are fine for video devices or storage devices but not audio.
 
jamesperrett said:
The Via and O2 chips are fine for video devices or storage devices but not audio.
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Meaning no disrespect James. I've looked at your website and I am impressed. The guy Steen linked says otherwise but he was focused on video. I have a PCIe card with a Via chipset I bought a few years back to try an upgrade from my old XP box. It didn't work then but I did not follow those steps as laid out. Worth another try I think as I already have all the bits - a firewire card and a fast Win10 box to drop it in.

Background - I have an XP box that I built with a friend in 2006 or so. It was way loaded for the time with fast memory and dual core i5 or something and multiple HDs, a RAID array and all that shit I have since forgotten. I was using an M-audio Omni I/O with the Delta66 card and kept it for running my near fields after I added the Audiofire. The audiofire was/is outstanding - 12 ins and outs with no preamps. Ran it straight off my Mackie board and I could and did record the whole band live - with mixed results admittedly. Anyway the setup worked well for me.

So 15 years later and all that stuff is dinosaur age boat anchors. The OS has changed and maybe drivers were never updated and you ain't gonna use that old stuff unless you have managed to keep an XP box alive. Well as mentioned I still have my old one. I got a new power supply for it today and with a little luck I'll be back in business shortly. But for how long? Eventually the motherboard will croak and then what? Can I run XP in a "virtual machine" on a Win10 box and keep the old hardware going? Do I have better odds of pulling that off or trying to upgrade the OS? I paid $400 for the Audiofire used in 2007 or so. I believe they were over $1000 new. Comparable stuff nowadays is all that and then some. For what little fucking about I do I really don't want to spend huge money on hardware.

So that's where I'm at. What would you guys do? And thanks again for all the input.
 
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I do understand the fascination with reviving old gear. I recently put my mothballed HD24 back into action, because I need it for a certain thing.

Computer hardware however - It just doesn't stand the test of time. Too many things change, very fast. And being dependent on operating systems, and whatever hardware is still available to fix it, makes it a questionable choice. If you are good with computers and associated hardware, it would not be difficult to bring it back to life. The question is, is it really worth it?

Is this a matter of economy, i.e. you cannot afford to replace it, or is it more of a 'I would like to get it working again', just for the heck of it?

I have kept XP machines running for very specialized circumstances (not audio, and not mine), but would not even consider using one now, for the purposes of multi-track audio. Times change.

How many inputs and outputs do you need, and what is your end goal?

oh yeah, running a DAW is challenging enough, running it as VM is asking for trouble, and totally backwards from an optimization perspective.
 
Eric Malone said:
I do understand the fascination with reviving old gear.
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It's not really "fascination" like restoring an older car. It's more that the stuff I spent good money on is essentially junk now. That pisses me off. It was good enough for me then it would be good enough for me now but it's lifespan is essentially limited. How long can I keep it going?
 
Quick update. New power supply arrived yesterday. I dropped it in this morning and the old system is running like new. Good for now but I still want to see if I can finagle a way to bring the Audiofire into the modern world.
 
Glad you got it up and running. I have a brand new, sealed PCI firewire card if it's of any use to you, don't want anything for it. It is a VIA chipset (VT6306) however, which seem to get a mixed bag of results.

I have a customer who is running Delta 1010's on Linux. Years ago, I sourced a few motherboards that have PCI slots, so in the event his motherboard died, he could at least hopefully get it back up and running again. What processor are you running in the XP box?
 

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The XP box is based on an Intel DG33TL desktop board - at the time alleged to be the last desktop board they would make - with a Core2 Quad core running at 2.4 ghz. As I said before it is a nice unit for me - suits my purposes. I still use the Omnistudio for playback through the near fields but all inputs are Mackie to Audiofire and I use the same in reverse for playback through the "big sound" - a Juice 1400 watt power amp and 4 JBL stage monitors. Lots of headroom! DAW is Reaper.
 
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