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Xpred
New member
After researching some more in these forums, I've noticed most people tend to go FireWire rather than USB for sound recording specific interfaces. Why is this?
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ericlingus
New member
less latency
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guitarboi89
New member
also people generally have printers, mp3 players, mouse's, external hard drive etc on the usb port. This means that there is less bandwidth on the usb which can cause problems. As not many people use firewire (unless they have an ipod) then there is no competition for bandwidth
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wishtheend
New member
Actually it's just that Firewire can handle TONS more data than USB. It's fast, and when multi-tracking, USB just can't cut it.
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Yareek
New member
There are several reasons, some of which I'll explain, some I couldn't quite put my finger on, and some I've forgotten.
First, even though USB 2.0 is technically faster than Firewire (480 mb/s versus 400 mb/s), in reality, Firewire tends to outperform USB 2.0 by about 15%. I think this is because the data transfer method of Firewire is much more stable than USB, which sends data in bursts versus a steady stream. USB tends to have data transfer, then latency, then data transfer when it's streaming information. Technically, both buses are capable of isochronous data transfer - meaning they send data based on a sync - but the actual transfer method for Firewire more closely follows this method than USB. This becomes much less relevant for USB 2.0, as it can send much more information than the old USB 1.1, but it's still a factor.
Also, Firewire transfer tends to have much lower latency. Part of this is due to the engineering of the bus, and part of it seems to be due to the chipsets involved. Like I said, I've forgotten a lot of this stuff, but if you do a Google search, you'll find that Firewire tends to outperform USB by about 15% in both data transfer and access times.
That's why I feel a lot better about using Firewire products, but I'd still use a USB 2.0 product if need be.
First, even though USB 2.0 is technically faster than Firewire (480 mb/s versus 400 mb/s), in reality, Firewire tends to outperform USB 2.0 by about 15%. I think this is because the data transfer method of Firewire is much more stable than USB, which sends data in bursts versus a steady stream. USB tends to have data transfer, then latency, then data transfer when it's streaming information. Technically, both buses are capable of isochronous data transfer - meaning they send data based on a sync - but the actual transfer method for Firewire more closely follows this method than USB. This becomes much less relevant for USB 2.0, as it can send much more information than the old USB 1.1, but it's still a factor.
Also, Firewire transfer tends to have much lower latency. Part of this is due to the engineering of the bus, and part of it seems to be due to the chipsets involved. Like I said, I've forgotten a lot of this stuff, but if you do a Google search, you'll find that Firewire tends to outperform USB by about 15% in both data transfer and access times.
That's why I feel a lot better about using Firewire products, but I'd still use a USB 2.0 product if need be.
battleminnow
What's this button do?
karyoker said:
If you have the Onyx w/the FW card, you don't need the delta. The Mackie is your interface. I had an Onyx 1640 for a while at the studio and loved it. 16 channel up and 2 back down through one cable. And they are linkable, so if you wanted to add more, you can. There is a lot of good and a very small and mostly overcomable amount of bad. The only thing that really sucks is the price. $400 for the card, plus whatever the price of the mixer you choose.
Pete
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TimOBrien
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dgatwood
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Xpred said:
Short answer:
1. USB causes heavy CPU load when doing high speed transfers. This means that USB audio is more likely to glitch when something takes a little longer than expected in software.
2. FireWire at its current maximum spec (800 Mbps) is almost twice as fast as USB 2.0. The protocol has more room for future expansion.
3. There -is- no USB 2.0 audio spec yet. "USB 2.0" audio devices are just USB 1.1 devices running at a higher data rate. Thus, the protocol is not optimized for the USB 2.0 bus, leading to further performance issues.
4. The large number of players in the USB 2.0 space, coupled with relatively lax spec compliance enforcement, has led to an awful lot of devices that just don't work very well.
5. FireWire's isoch support is more reliable than USB. Your device is pretty much guaranteed to retain an isoch reservation (joining two heavily laden FireWire busses together or introduction of buggy hardware notwithstanding), which generally means that bus contention isn't a significant issue with FireWire no matter what else is on the bus. I don't believe the same can be said of USB, or at least not to the same degree.
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cawhite12
New member
dgatwood said:
This may be changing. Have you seen MOTU's new USB 2.0 version of the 828MKII?
http://news.harmony-central.com/Newp/2005/MOTU-828mkii-usb2.html
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brzilian
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dgatwood
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cawhite12 said:
Yeah. Hardware manufacturers have been claiming USB 2.0 for years. To my knowledge, the spec still hasn't been finalized. Thus, this is what we in the computer business refer to as a "little white lie". Technically, the devices are running at USB 2.0 speeds, but logically, they still behave like really fast USB 1.1 devices.