What's wrong with USB?

  • Thread starter Thread starter AndrewAndrew
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AndrewAndrew

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I've read a lot of "stay away from USB" talk. I am thinking about getting a USB soundcard, and I don't understand what the negative hype is about.
Help!
 
1. A lot of them simply don't work out of the box with certain motherboards

2. The connection speed is too slow for multitrack recording. Any usb card you see advertised as '4 input', will drop to 2 inputs at 24/96 and probably turn off monitoring as well
 
definitely the case for USB 1.0 kit, but USB 2.0 kit can support a pretty reasonable bandwidth connection , not as fast as firewire but still pretty good :)

my tascam 224 is only usb 1 and only does 2 channels of 24bit/48k but still loads the usb bus a hell of a lot...but its usb powered and works a treat with my laptop :D

a lot of issues came from cheaper onboard OHCI controllers,etc when the usb standard was first implemented

http://www.tascam.com/Products/US-224/ohci_uhci_compatibility.pdf
 
Firewire is not only faster in both cases, but also depends less on the computer's CPU when transferring data.

USB simply was not designed with audio/video in mind where that is exactly what Firewire was intended for from day one.
 
USB can be very finicky. That being said, I've had luck with the Tascam 122, working on KT333, KM400, KT600 Via chipsets, as well as an Intel 830M chipset. However I have not tried M-Audio's stuff, and have heard many issues with some of them.

Also, when M-Audio's now offering firewire devices for as low as $199, I no longer see the value in USB devices.

Also, Echo is coming out with FW stuff, more than likely at NAMM next month. I will probably be upgrading to that, once they come out (unless they totally suck, of course).
 
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