[LAU] hardware: recording voice and acc. guitar

[Pieter Palmers]

Loki Davison wrote:
> On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 3:33 PM, Al Thompson <biggles58 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----
>> From: Loki Davison <loki.davison at gmail.com>
>> To: schoappied <schoappied at gmail.com>
>> Cc: Al Thompson <biggles58 at sbcglobal.net>;
>> Linux-audio-user at lists.linuxaudio.org
>> Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 1:04:58 AM
>> Subject: Re: [LAU] hardware: recording voice and acc. guitar
>>
>>> wow. This is so wrong it hurts... You say phantom power not possible
>> >from a pci slot or computer power supply but with usb mixer? ARRG! USB
>>> is a great way to plug in your mouse. For audio, go pci, or if you
>>> can't got pci, firewire or pcmcia.
>>>
>>> 10 channel in 14 out. and yes, to Al, ......... phantom power on both
>>> mic pre's from a pci card! wow.... like standard... The linux mixer
>> Just out of curiosity, where is the 48V coming from?  There is no 48V
>> available internally.  There is 12V, if you want to limit yourself to AKG
>> and Shure mics, but I wouldn't want to draw that much current from a
>> computer supply.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC-DC_converter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boost_converter

How do you think a bus powered USB device does it? USB bus power is 5V.

>>
>>> usb = crap. Oh, just in case you missed it. I think usb is a bad choice.
>> What's your dislike of USB?  You can do 2x2 even over USB 1.1.  Until the
>> latest version of the Firewire standard, it couldn't hold a candle to USB.

my firewire alarm triggered here...

What latest version are you talking about? The 1995 version (400Mbit/s) 
can handle >200 channels at 48k, providing both phase and rate accuracy 
for all channels throughout the system. There is not a doubt about the 
fact that FireWire is technically superior to USB in general, and 
definitely regarding audio.

A more recent version (1394b-2002) has commercially available products 
at 800Mbit/s (400 channels), and specified up to 3.2Gbit/s.

Let me give you some arguments pro firewire:
* globally available clock (relative AND absolute timing)
* guaranteed bandwidth
* (1394b) support for redundant connections
* (1394b) optical fibre support

I could go on for a while, but it's not really worth it. The only 
'superiority' of USB is in the cost department.

Greets,

Pieter