[linux-audio-dev] ALSA USB Driver

[Lee Revell]

On Sun, 2006-01-15 at 23:02 +0200, Sampo Savolainen wrote:
> On Sun, 2006-01-15 at 14:49 -0600, Richard Smith wrote:
> > Take a good look at the specs.  I bought a M-Audio Audiophile USB and
> > found out that it was not "class compliant" and then on top of that it
> > was unable to do full-duplex audio at 24/96.  I ended up buying a PCI
> > card.
> 
> Actually, you don't even have look at the specs. M-audio uses really
> sneaky tactics with their USB devices.
> 
> Look at the pictures of the Audiophile USB. See anything missing? Where
> is the USB logo? They only use the "USB trident" which is used only to
> identify the connector. They don't use the proper USB logo for which
> they need to be class complient. If they would use the logo and fail
> compliency, they would be subject to a flogging from USB-IF. 
> 
> So in effect, their USB devices aren't USB devices at all. They just
> happen to work with some USB hosts.
> 
> I got hit by this via their Quattro. Nice piece of kit, too bad it...
> didn't work properly! 
> 

Do some vendors actually make it difficult to find out whether the
device is class compliant or not?  Man, that would be evil.

I've never used a USB audio device and don't plan to, but would expect
this to be included in the specs posted on the web site...

Also it's possible for a device to be USB compliant but not a "class
compliant audio device".

It used to be the easiest way to tell was "does it work on OSX without a
driver", I'm not sure if that's still the case.

Lee