On Thu, May 18, 2006 at 09:41:02AM -0400, Paul Davis wrote:
you're "friends who ought to know more about
these things" don't know
enough. consumer audio devices may (and do) suffer from this, but
serious pro/pro-sumer devices do not. its not even required that the
analog i/o be outside the box - lots of people love the iZ RADAR system
and it puts all of its converters *inside* a 4U chassis with a regular
intel-based computer. of course, iZ does know a bit about high end power
regulation and converter clock coupling :)
Another example: the Delta 66 and Delta 44 do conversion inside
the chassis as well. Noise specs are still pretty darn good for
the money. The Delta 1010 puts the converters outside the
box and does have a slightly better S/N ratio.
But frankly, most of us with home studios will struggle to get a quiet
enough recording environment that *acoustic* noises don't totally
obscure the noise floor of the 66 or 44.
To me, the attraction of firewire is purely its ease of portability.
--
Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com