Firewire External sound card

[chelgrian]

There are still lots of audio devices using Firewire around but his is set to change rapidly as it's getting more and more difficult to get computers with Firewire ports. USB3 or maybe Thunderbolt will be the next big thing but any big move is still a little while off. In the meantime, USB2 seems the fairly universal compromise.

 

Firewire never took off on PCs but it's universally been on Macs for years and the mid end of the market such MOTU, RME etc. have been Firewire. However both of these manufacturers have now come out with hybrid USB2/Firewire units.

 

At the high end Metric Halo are still Firewire but Apogee have gone to USB2 For low channel count, up to 16, but they still use custom PCI-Express cards for high counts, up to 64. Apogee have already announced they are going to go to Thunderbolt, that means they can expand the market for their high channel count interfaces as you'll no longer need a Mac Pro to host it.