Firewire or PCI ?

ORIGINAL: OffAnAirplane

Which type of sound card is faster, firewire or PCI ?

Both are plenty fast enough to do audio so speed is a non issue. So you can choose freely any card that meets your needs and has good drivers. There is plenty to choose from in both. If you think you might ever need to use the interface with a laptop firewire would be the way to go. Also, unless the PCI interface has balanced ins or a external box for the I/O you might pick up some hum and buzz with a PCI interface. Firewire lets you get it away from the PC so there is less chance of picking up noise.

ORIGINAL: OffAnAirplane

Well I've bought a Presonus Firebox a few days ago to use with my laptop. But now I'm gonna sell my laptop and buy a new desktop. And I'm not all that impressed with the Firebox anyway. So I was thinking about exchanging it for an M-Audio AP-192 or maybe a Delta-44. I don't need a lot of ins or outs. 4 and 4 would be plenty. And I've got preamps already so I don't need a sound card with preamps.

Lots of folks have the Delta 44 and it seems to have good drivers, I'd go with it.

Delta 44 Seconded! It was my first real interface and had nothing but love for it... until I needed more channels.

PCI does have more bandwidth than firewire, but Firewire is fast enough for a ridiculous amount of audio as well. I tend to think PCI is more robust, but as generations of firewire interfaces keep coming that's changing...

What didn't you like about the Firebox OffAnAirplane?

I'm just interested because I have got one too. I haven't done much with it yet, and haven't had it long.

Nothing really. It worked ok with my laptop. I just wasn't real impressed with the preamps. I'm not big on the ASIO driver either. I much prefer WDM.