Thank you for the news that Tascam will do drivers in house.  I think it's great for all the reasons you have cited and will help the company. 
 
All I can report is what the Tascam employee told us at the time.  The driver existed, was not acted upon, the employee said he did not understand why, and got it looked at again.  This took almost a year.  Soon after, it was released with the sign-off as you describe.  You are correct in your speculation, quality control was mentioned as a possible reason, but there was apparently neglect as well.  What happened within Tascam, we are not privileged to know, but I believe Tom and others will corroborate what I am saying.  
 
I also appreciate the difficulty in writing drivers, as I taught programming on the college level for thirty years.  I don't care about being proven right about all this, though.  I only look forward to progress.  I respectfully request Tascam consider whether it can make the changes needed for a new driver installation, as the existing driver for Windows 7 64-bit already can work under certain conditions in later versions of the OS.  It's not like an all-new driver is needed for Windows, just adaptation of the installation routine for a new OS.  This would be a quick way for Tascam to prove the worth of creating this new internal department, and would go a long way toward improving customer relations based on past problems with the lack of third party drivers.
 
I cannot speak to the Mac drivers.
 
Thanks again for listening.
 

riojazz
I respectfully request Tascam consider whether it can make the changes needed for a new driver installation, as the existing driver for Windows 7 64-bit already can work under certain conditions in later versions of the OS.  It's not like an all-new driver is needed for Windows, just adaptation of the installation routine for a new OS.  This would be a quick way for Tascam to prove the worth of creating this new internal department, and would go a long way toward improving customer relations based on past problems with the lack of third party drivers.

 
I will ask, but remember, TASCAM may not even own the rights to the drivers or have the right to alter the code. If you look at any software EULA there's always a line about it being expressly forbidden to alter, modify, reverse engineer, etc. any of the code. Similar agreements are often in place between manufacturers. Third parties companies don't necessarily sell code outright, but license it as IP (intellectual property) based on what can be a very restrictive contract. If that's the case and TASCAM would have to write drivers starting from ground zero for a product that was designed over a decade ago based on hardware that was designed probably 15 or more years ago, they'd have to be really, really dedicated to take that on.
 

Subscribing to thread:) 
 
I'm using FW1884 with Win8.1 and X3e, working nicely. Using the Win7 x64 drivers.
As Tom said, the installation routine is quite extensive, due to the lack of legacy FW driver in Win8 (this is an Microsoft decision)
And you'll have to modify your startup, so driver signing is set to "off" (the FW1884 driver is not "signed")

kristoffer
Subscribing to thread:) 
 
I'm using FW1884 with Win8.1 and X3e, working nicely. Using the Win7 x64 drivers.
As Tom said, the installation routine is quite extensive, due to the lack of legacy FW driver in Win8 (this is an Microsoft decision)
And you'll have to modify your startup, so driver signing is set to "off" (the FW1884 driver is not "signed")

If the Win7 x64 drivers work, then it sounds like what's really needed right now is better installation instructions. Again I don't know the intricacies of Firewire and interfaces, but it seems the lack of a legacy driver is a problem. So is the basic idea that you have find a legacy driver from Windows 7, install it, and then go through some convoluted installation routine? In any event if it's working fine for you, then it seems like it should be possible for it to work fine for others if they know how to make that happen.

Anderton

kristoffer
Subscribing to thread:) 
 
I'm using FW1884 with Win8.1 and X3e, working nicely. Using the Win7 x64 drivers.
As Tom said, the installation routine is quite extensive, due to the lack of legacy FW driver in Win8 (this is an Microsoft decision)
And you'll have to modify your startup, so driver signing is set to "off" (the FW1884 driver is not "signed")

If the Win7 x64 drivers work, then it sounds like what's really needed right now is better installation instructions. Again I don't know the intricacies of Firewire and interfaces, but it seems the lack of a legacy driver is a problem. So is the basic idea that you have find a legacy driver from Windows 7, install it, and then go through some convoluted installation routine? In any event if it's working fine for you, then it seems like it should be possible for it to work fine for others if they know how to make that happen.

Yes, thats the way I installed it and it worked fine. But, the issue is it is quite unstable, I know others have tried and it does not work for them. Also, I had another motherboard earlier (Gigabyte UD3R, now I have a Intel mobo) and I had no luck with that one. 
 
My opinion: if Tascam got the drivers signed, it would have taken off most of the issues because to disable the driver signing at startup isn't really a thing to to for the common man in the street 

Yes! This is exactly it.

My last post said, "It's not like an all-new driver is needed for Windows, just adaptation of the installation routine for a new OS."

Craig, thanks for anything you can do.

Craig, Mike brought up a good point.
To effectively play/monitor in realtime thru software based processing/EFX, round-trip latency needs to be sub 6ms.
Upward of 10ms feels like playing thru molasses... (or a masochistic 100% wet delay line that can't be bypassed)  
 
The little RME Babyface yields sub 5ms total round-trip latency at a 48-sample ASIO buffer size 44.1k.
That's dangerously close to the best PCIe units.
RME are the (low-latency) benchmark by which all other USB audio interfaces are judged.
RME has earned that "benchmark" status.
With a well-configured current generation machine, you can run substantial loads (glitch-free) at that 48-sample ASIO buffer size.
 
IMO, Tascam needs to achieve this level of performance to attract the masses (if you can call our niche massive).
Great fidelity with rock-solid low round-trip latency... paired with great support and easy install will result in sales.
 
I wish you all the absolute best... just kicking my $0.02 into the discussion.  

Jim Roseberry
The little RME Babyface yields sub 5ms total round-trip latency at a 48-sample ASIO buffer size 44.1k.
That's dangerously close to the best PCIe units.
 
IMO, Tascam needs to achieve this level of performance to attract the masses (if you can call our niche massive).
Great fidelity with rock-solid low round-trip latency... paired with great support and easy install will result in sales.
 

Well, the 4x4 is $249 and the 2x2 is $149, which is a whole lot less than the Babyface. I think the goal is more to compete with the Focusrites of this world due to the discrete preamps and price range, the two instrument ins, and the iOS compatibility. I also know they're emphasizing ease of installation. I should be getting the units soon to test.
 
What I don't understand is why virtually all the interfaces I've ever tested register round-trip latencies of around 10 ms or more even with only 64 sample buffers. According to the PreSonus document I referenced (which seemed to say it was not possible to obtain USB round trip below 4 ms as Mike claimed), they talk about manufacturers using "USB safety buffers" and that's what accounts for the higher latencies. Is what RME doing so difficult that other interface manufacturers with lots of resources (e.g., Steinberg via Yamaha) can't reach the same kind of latency specs? And how does Line 6 ToneDirect monitoring manage to get such low latency? They claim to bypass layers of the OS. Is that what RME is doing? Or is it something like PreSonus, where they're monitoring outside the DAW? I'm not finding it easy to get answers to these kinds of questions.

...would love an answer to this as well!

Here is a place to start to read about audio latency. Vince has done a lot of leg work testing different units.
http://www.dawbench.com/audio-int-lowlatency.htm
http://www.dawbench.com/audio-int-lowlatency2.htm
http://www.dawbench.com/audio-int-lowlatency3.htm
 
RME seems to be the only company that makes its own chipsets and drivers. They have complete control and
a passion for great drivers. I wish I could afford one