Need help with Audio Interface

[steve350]

I have a laptop with Win2000 on it. I am looking for a 2 channel audio interface for recording. I am new to this and not sure if I should go firewire or USB. I am not certain that many firewire units support Win2000.
I would like to keep this to under $500, any suggestions? Thank you.

 

[Bulls Hit]

I'd go with firewire.

Check out the Presonus units, Firebox, Inspire is pretty cheap. People say good things about the M-Audio boxes as well

 

[XLR]

One of the recording systems I use is a Tascam US122 USB interface with a Win2000 laptop. Works flawlessly. I've never had a glitch on it. I have nothing on the system but recording apps.

But the US122 is glitchy on my XP laptop.

With interfaces generally, most appear to have fewer problems with firewire than USB.

 

[sajs]

I'd go with firewire.

Check out the Presonus units, Firebox, Inspire is pretty cheap. People say good things about the M-Audio boxes as well

None of the PreSonus products support Win2000. However some of the MAudio do:

FireWire 410 $399
Audiophile USB $249
MobilePre $179

Maybe if anyone is using one of the above they can comment on the preamps,etc.

 

[TimOBrien]

Sound advice and recommendations here:

http://www.tweakheadz.com/soundcards_for_the_home_studio.htm

I prefer firewire to USB. Firewire was built from the ground-up to be a replacement for SCSI to do audio and video work (which is MUCH more bandwidth intensive than audio). USB was originally designed to connect temporary burst devices like cameras, backup drives, keyboards and mice; it does not really come up to the promised sustained bandwidth even with USB2.

 

[dgatwood]

I prefer firewire to USB. Firewire was built from the ground-up to be a replacement for SCSI to do audio and video work (which is MUCH more bandwidth intensive than audio). USB was originally designed to connect temporary burst devices like cameras, backup drives, keyboards and mice; it does not really come up to the promised sustained bandwidth even with USB2.

Well, it comes pretty close in terms of bulk bandwidth. The biggest place where USB falls over dead is when you have to guarantee a chunk of bandwidth within a certain period of time (isochronous communication). For hard drives, that's a non-issue. For audio, it's really important....

The other place where USB does pretty badly is CPU overhead. That makes USB bad for pretty much any bulk data transport where CPU performance is critical (thus making it awful for an audio drive as well)....

Bottom line, USB has no place in a studio except for low speed devices like keyboards and mice. Things like audio data drives and audio interfaces should never be USB.