Re: AW: RME PCI cardbus vs Firewire

[Brian Cass <b@the0verclock.com>]

My personal experience tells me that PCI is always faster than USB or  
Firewire.
i guess it's just closer to the CPU that way, less conversion going  
on. wether we like to admit it or not A to D is a conversion step and  
firewire/usb to whatever app is also a conversion step. same on the  
way out. and using PCI seems to minimize the middlemen conversion steps.

As far as USB vs. Firewire.....

i think sharing is a big problem. Firewire drives on the same bus as  
the interface, or even keyboards, mice, etc... on the USB.

It's news to me (but not a surprise) that the mac USB 2  
implementation is dodgy. I have never had good luck with low latency  
using USB2 interfaces on my macs.

- b



On May 25, 2006, at 6:05 AM, Per Boysen wrote:

> On 25 maj 2006, at 10.58, Rainer Thelonius Balthasar Straschill wrote:
>
>>> Also, some audio interfaces don't perform so well if MIDI cc
>>> data is shuffled through its MIDI in/out port (as is the case
>>> with my RME Multiface
>>
>> Could you elaborate a little more on that? What do you have to do
>> specifically on the MIDI ports to get which effect on the audio  
>> ports? As I
>> do own a Multiface, I'm somewhat curious...
>
>
> Using MIDI expression pedals or faders to send MIDI cc data through  
> the Multiface built-in MIDI port sometimes creates crackling  
> artifacts in the audio. This problem is still around with the  
> latest OS X drivers but in my own praxis I solved it long ago by  
> going out to buy a cheap USB MIDI interface, thus leaving the  
> Multiface to handle audio streaming only.
>
> I have not used the Multiface MIDI ports on Windows XP, so I can't  
> tell if those drivers have the same issue.
>
>
>> Beware however, from what I've read, the USB2 implementation on
>> Macs is faulty, resulting in an effective USB2 performance of  
>> about half the
>> Firewire 400 data rate.
>
> Thanks you, that's important information! I didn't know about that  
> but, I have had a certain impression that my firewire drives work  
> as good over USB2 as over FW when I pop them into my PC. On the Mac  
> I usually feed them from the  FW800 port.
>
> I once tried an USB audi interface on a Mac and it was so bad that  
> I brought it back to the store and got my money back. Maybe it  
> should have worked better if I had tried it on a PC then?
>
> Greetings from Sweden
>
> Per Boysen
> www.boysen.se (Swedish)
> www.looproom.com (international)
> http://tinyurl.com/fauvm (podcast)
>
>
>
>