USB 2.0 Interface

[jasonfarbman]

I'm currently hitting the limits of my M-Audio Firewire 410. Bought it because it was cheap and had lots of outputs and two headphone outputs, but the preamps/controls aren't that great, and there is always having to put my comp. to sleep before plugging it in/out..

I've been looking for a new box to run on my MacBook, but have been looking USB 2.0 since I will likely someday upgrade my computer and they're not supporting Firewire anymore.

I'm looking at the Edirol UA-25EX, which seems like it has good preamps, and had a compressor/limiter that looks super handy. I do wish it had more inputs/outputs, although I think they're really all I need. But the price - $70 cheaper than the Firewire 410 - makes me think it might be a step down? I know that's not necessarily true, so posted here...

Anyone have the UA-25EX? Happy with it? Suggestions for other boxes?

Thanks!
Jason

[the finger genius]

I think you may be in for disappointment in getting just about any USB box as an upgrade over a firewire box. You're almost certainly going to run into more latency, and most firewire boxes will get you more ins / outs. I do understand it's a tough call, as firewire may be a disappearing format.

[;ivlunsdystf]

Okay, maybe we can settle this USB/firewire thing a bit since we are discussing: How can Tascam say this:



about their USB 2.0 which will apparently stream 8 tracks of "up to" 24/96? It seems too good to be true. I am not ready to ditch my firewire habit because of their little diagram.

Meanwhile, that Edirol box looks fine as long as you believe USB 2.0 is as good as/better than 1394/firewire. Let's figure this out once and for all. ???

[the finger genius]

I can't help in settling this once and for all, since I don't have a degree in ellectrical engineering, or any other related topic. I've heard it stated that FW does a better job of transferring information 2 ways (which I assumes translates to read / write) whereas USB may be better for one way transfer.

Maybe someone has some real proof of this, rather than just the hearsay and conjecture that I offer?

A quick google search comes up with a few pages that all basically say firewire is faster in most real world applications, usually with some variation of this:

(from http://www.technibble.com/firewire-vs-usb/)

Direct Comparison

Architecture wise, the ?Peer-to-Peer? of FireWire allows devices to be intelligent enough and negotiate bus conflicts to decide who should control the data transfer, while USB uses the ?Master-Slave? architecture where the computer control the data flow between the attached peripherals, which adds a significant system overhead.

....the raw speed of FireWire is unbeatable by USB. Even the USB 2.0 standard is unable to beat the real world performance of earlier FireWire 400.

Though technically USB 2.0 is a 480 Mbit/s interface and FireWire 400 is a 400 Mbit/s interface, but many read and write tests to the same hard drive using FireWire and USB 2.0 shows that FireWire 400 is still significantly faster than USB 2.0.

[;ivlunsdystf]

See, I'm not an EE guy nor do I do formal "read and write tests" but I will say that my Tascam US-122 can barely send 2 tracks of 24/48 to disk whereas the three different firewire interfaces I've used with the same computer (a Tascam, a Satellite Mackie, and a tc Konnekt) don't seem to hiccup EVER even with 3 or 4 tracks of 24/48 or what have you.

Which is why it pisses me off that Apple and Tascam among others are turning their backs on 1394 and offering that stupid graph or variations thereof as "proof" that USB is better anyhow.

[the finger genius]

I have no problems recording 16 tracks into my 002R, and with almost no noticeable latency in Low Latency mode.

[;ivlunsdystf]

I have no problems recording 16 tracks into my 002R, and with almost no noticeable latency in Low Latency mode.

So that's another vote for firewire right?

[the finger genius]

I don't think there's any real question that firewire has better performance. I guess the question is, how much $ do you want to sink into what's fast becoming an unsupported format?

[b3groover]

From the wiki:

USB was originally seen as a complement to FireWire (IEEE 1394), which was designed as a high-speed serial bus which could efficiently interconnect peripherals such as hard disks, audio interfaces, and video equipment. USB originally operated at a far lower data rate and used much simpler hardware, and was suitable for small peripherals such as keyboards and mice.

The most significant technical differences between FireWire and USB include the following:

* USB networks use a tiered-star topology, while FireWire networks use a tree topology.
* USB 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0 use a "speak-when-spoken-to" protocol; peripherals cannot communicate with the host unless the host specifically requests communication. USB 3.0 is planned to allow for device-initiated communications towards the host (see USB 3.0 below). A FireWire device can communicate with any other node at any time, subject to network conditions.
* A USB network relies on a single host at the top of the tree to control the network. In a FireWire network, any capable node can control the network.
* USB runs with a 5 V power line, while Firewire can supply up to 30 V.

These and other differences reflect the differing design goals of the two buses: USB was designed for simplicity and low cost, while FireWire was designed for high performance, particularly in time-sensitive applications such as audio and video. Although similar in theoretical maximum transfer rate, FireWire 400 tends to have the performance edge over USB 2.0 Hi-Speed in real-world uses, especially in high-bandwidth use such as external hard-drives.[27][28][29][30] The newer FireWire 800 standard is twice as fast as FireWire 400 and outperforms USB 2.0 Hi-Speed both theoretically and practically.[31] The chipset and drivers used to implement USB and Firewire have a crucial impact on how much of the bandwidth prescribed by the specification is achieved in the real world, along with compatibility with peripherals.[32] Audio peripherals in particular are affected by the USB driver implementation.[citation needed]

Initially, cost was significant in USB being more widespread than FireWire. Over time, USB benefited from network effect.

It is my understanding that USB needs to use the host CPU while Firewire does not.

Again, from wiki:

Although high-speed USB 2.0 nominally runs at a higher signaling rate (480 Mbit/s) than FireWire 400, data transfers over S400 FireWire interfaces generally outperform similar transfers over USB 2.0 interfaces. Typical USB PC-hosts rarely exceed sustained transfers of 280 Mbit/s, with 240 Mbit/s being more typical. This is likely due to USB's reliance on the host-processor to manage low-level USB protocol, whereas FireWire delegates the same tasks to the interface hardware. For example, the FireWire host interface supports memory-mapped devices, which allows high-level protocols to run without loading the host CPU with interrupts and buffer-copy operations.[4] Besides throughput, other differences are that it uses simpler bus networking, provides more power over the chain, more reliable data transfer, and uses less CPU resources.[23]

FireWire 800 is substantially faster than Hi-Speed USB, both in theory and in practice.[24]

I don't know why Apple is discontinuing the use of Firewire. Pretty dumb, if you ask me.

[;ivlunsdystf]

rrr

I am forcing the issue here in order to help the OP and others who might be seduced by those STOOPID meaningless statistics like the ones in the picture I quoted.

rrrr

rrrrrr

[RefD]

*is sticking with his system that uses proprietary PCI host cards until they burst into flaming pools of molten slag*