Behringer FCA202 firewire audio interface

[gyrofrog.com]

Anyone familiar with these? I am wondering if it would have better sound quality (and less noise) than a Griffin iMic, or my laptop's built-in audio ports.

I would be using this with a Firewire Powerbook (a G3, only 400 or 500 MhZ) and neither the Behringer documents nor the retail websites are clear as to what the hardware requirements are.

(For now I'm only trying to get 2-channel audio into my laptop.)

Thanks!

[Albert]

I bought one of those recently for use with my iBook, but I ended up sending it back. The problem I had with it was that it wouldn't work properly if there was a hard drive on the same firewire buss (on my laptop). There was a lot of crackling in the audio.

It would work fine if the sounds came off the internal hard drive, and it worked fine with my desktop Mac. Just not the iBook with an external hard drive, which is unfortunately how I needed to use it.

There may have been a system setting somewhere that I needed to tweak, but I couldn't figure a solution and I spent some time on it. Since sending it back, I read about troubleshooting a different firewire interface where they said airport needs to be turned off to eliminate any crackling. Wish I'd seen that before sending the FCA202 back, because I'd like to have tried it.

I really wanted it to work too, because it is so inexpensive and sounded good. It's the perfect size, very small and built in a solid little metal case.

So for what it's worth, I was not able to use the FCA202 with my laptop, the 1.42ghz 14" iBook (the last G4 iBook). But your experience may be different, but just make sure you buy it from somewhere that you can return it.

[gyrofrog.com]

The problem I had with it was that it wouldn't work properly if there was a hard drive on the same firewire buss (on my laptop).

That's one of the things I wondered about. The laptop has 2 firewire ports, but I assume only one bus. I don't imagine there's much way around this: my longstanding impression was that I shouldn't try to use the internal HDD (i.e. the startup disk) for audio purposes.

There was a lot of crackling in the audio... I read about troubleshooting a different firewire interface where they said airport needs to be turned off to eliminate any crackling

This is the problem I have now, but I think it's with the audio output. I'm pretty sure it came from my wireless card. When I moved the audio cables around the back, I couldn't hear it anymore.

[Albert]

My iBook only has one firewire port. That may make a difference, as the FCA202 worked fine on my desktop, which has two ports.

I really wanted to like the FCA202 but I just couldn't get past the crackling audio thing. If you have a dealer that would accept a return if it doesn't work, it might be worth your time to try it out. It really sounded okay in the scenarios where there was no crackling.

Otherwise maybe take a look at the Presonus Firebox. I ultimately purchased a MOTU Traveler.