firewire vs. PCI

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coplinger

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I am looking at options for a new 24/96 front end with at least 8 balanced analog in/outs. What are the differences/advantages/disadvantages of going with a firewire system as opposed to a PCI based system (aside from the obvious laptop advantage-I have a desktop)? Aside from Echo, M-audio, MOTU, Aardvark, & RME, are there any others in this price range I should look at?
 
Whatever firewire setup you get, they all require you to use their own PCI card, not a generic firewire output. So you can just as well plug in a pci sound card.
 
Havoc said:
Whatever firewire setup you get, they all require you to use their own PCI card, not a generic firewire output. So you can just as well plug in a pci sound card.
Click to expand...

Are you sure about that? I never noticed that. I thought the whole point of firewire interfaces was that you could move them from machine to machine easily.
 
Firewire is a "standard". Meaning any port should be the same. Granted, some cards don't work as well as others sometimes. But such is the way with computers.
 
I don't know how well PCI cards cross platforms, but moving my Firewire Digi002 from mt PC laptop at home to the Mac g4 at work is a breeze. Certainly easier than yanking out the card...

If you don't need the portability, however, my guess is that PCI solutions will give you more bang for buck.

Take care,
Chris
 
Chris, you're in Santa Cruz! We should go get a beer or a coffee some time...
 
Havoc said:
Whatever firewire setup you get, they all require you to use their own PCI card, not a generic firewire output. So you can just as well plug in a pci sound card.
Click to expand...

Ummm...no. That is all wrong.
 
Chris Shaeffer said:

If you don't need the portability, however, my guess is that PCI solutions will give you more bang for buck.
Click to expand...

Does this mean they have more bang? I haven't noticed a significant price difference between the two. I was more interested how they compare in regards to speed of data transfer, latency, driver issues, limitations, etc. At this time, I have no need to cross platforms or use multiple pc's (although it's not a bad thing to have that option). Is firewire a standard that should be around for a while, or is it on the way out?
 
Do they now? When I had a look, all alternatives (all 2 of them) were presqented with their own card. Well it is a large step in the good direction. Nice to know.
 
Havoc said:
Do they now? When I had a look, all alternatives (all 2 of them) were presqented with their own card. Well it is a large step in the good direction. Nice to know.
Click to expand...
Havoc firewire has been a standard since the day it came out. Which units are you referring to?
 
Firewire is supposed to be standard, but everything doesn't always work the way it should. From the Motu website:

There's an incompatibility between the NEC chip found in some Firewire cards and the motu firewire line of interface.

If the firewire installer warns you that you're running a Firewire card with the NEC chip, you should replace said card with a card that uses the TI (Texas Instruments) or Lucent chip. Keyspan, Sonnet and ADS are a few of the many brands using the TI or Lucent firewire chips.

Please check with the manufacturer of the firewire card before purchasing it to ensure it has the TI or Lucent chip.
Click to expand...

Be sure that if you choose a firewire interface, you get one that is compatible with your computer.

Another firewire consideration is that there is a limited amount of bandwidth. You will be fine with an 8-channel interface, but what if you expand in the future? When I first bought an audio interface, I was certain I was getting all I needed, but since then I've picked up a 2nd 8-channel interface (in addition, not a replacement), and a firewire hard drive (boy does recording use up disk space! And I couldn't get an internal because I'm using a laptop). My interface uses PCMCIA, so I don't know if I'd be pushing the limit or not if I had gone with firewire.

Some people mentioned that a PCI card won't allow you to use your interface with a laptop, but some of the devices (Echo, specifically), have a PCMCIA adapter available.
 
Havoc: You might be thinking of MOTU's audiowire, it's how you connect your converters to the MOTU pci card. It looks exactly like firewire to me, im not really sure of the difference, so maybe you were thinking this was a converter specific firewire card?
 
Mobile I/)

Don't know your price range, but you could also check out the Metric Halo Mobile I/O.

I don't know what the street price is these days. It's firewire with extremely good converters and very good build in mic pres. It also comes with a really great (albeit complext) matrix mixer for doing multiple mixes prior to sending signal to the DAW.
 
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