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The problem with that information is that it's doing big data and using all the bandwidth. Audio doesn't do that. There just isn't that much data going at any one time. So both are plenty fast enough for even the largest interfaces. Since the audio only needs to get that at the sample rate (clock speed) with maybe a tiny buffer it does not good at all to be able to move huge chucks of data. It's not like it can read ahead from the converters if it has time and capture stuff you haven't even played yet !! LOL
The CPU resource issue was real back in the days of slower computers. Firewire had an advantage because USB used up more CPU. That's a non issue now. A PC fast enough to run a recent version of Sonar can easily handle all the USB traffic also.
Then there is the ugly firewire chipset issue. Even tho you can do some nice things with the driver and protocol there doesn't seem to be many drivers that can do that and still work with the different chipsets out there. You can always find a TI chipset card for a desktop but there are no laptops I know of that have it built in. I don't think that issue will ever be fully put to rest and even if all the vendors did get the drivers perfect on all chipsets, by then USB will be the way to go. USB3 is already out that on systems, it's just a matter of time before sound interfaces start showing up.
By the way, firewire is faster for big data transfers, I've tried it. However, USB is more stabe. I've had problems with firewire connections to drives and never a problem with USB. If you use an external drive you would want to use eSATA or USB3 now anyway.
post edited by ohhey - 2010/12/20 14:14:39