[Trevor]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
...
On 4/28/2013 10:33 PM, Trevor wrote:
Right, they are already obsolete. Buying new hardware with that interface
is
just plain silly.

But what choices do you have today if you need to buy something today?

Well USB is a better option at the moment IMO.

(except for $10 stuff which you can throw away without a second thought)

It's all $10 stuff. Only problem is that some of it costs a few hundred $

Some many hundreds, or even thousands. But that's the cost I was talking
about, not the chip prices.

Buy a USB interface to ADAT optical and in ten years nobody will be
making
an 8-channel mic preamp with ADAT output.

I wouldn't bet on five let alone ten.

But if you buy a good mic preamp today, you won't need to buy another one
in five years. Are you suggesting that USB will become unavailable in ten
years? What you'll have to worry about is if you buy a new computer in
three years, the maker of your USB interface may not have a USB3 driver.

Not so worried about a USB3 driver, would be worried about a Windows 9/10
driver not being available.


So the trick is not to worry about replacing your audio hardware, but
rather what happens when you replace your computer.

That's when you need to replace your audio hardware. Hopefully it will keep
working with your current computer for as long as it does. Even if some new
software doesn't, your current stuff will.


The audio business isn't big enough to respond instantly to changes in
computers. You may not have a USB3 driver. You may not have a Windows 9
driver. If you'r "$10 stuff" cost $250 (and other stuff proportionally)
then maybe the audio companies would have enough money to jump right on to
needed updates. Think Lynx, not M-Audio.

Have a problem with my FW only MOTU already, and that was $1k plus :-(


If USB4 follows USB3, USB2 and USB1 backward compatibility, that won't be
a
problem.

But we've already discovered that the audio hardware is not fully backward
compatible.

What will be a problem is getting Windows 9/10 drivers for the
interface, or getting Windows 8/7/XP drivers for the computer to
downgrade
the OS.

And here's another root of the problem. The computer industry doesn't
believe in sustaining working systems. If I want to set up a new computer
and run WinXP, I have to go to the "used" or black market in order to get
a copy to install. I can't go to my friendly local computer store and buy
a new, licensed copy of WinXP. Maybe I should buy a retail copy of Win7
while I still can. Maybe you should, too.

You can transfer the license, but getting drivers for new hardware for old
OS's is going to stop it working anyway.


Why on earth do they want to use FW800 when FW400 is sufficient for the
job
and compatible with FW800, while not the reverse?

Probably because they (we're talking PreSonus StudioLive AI mixers) expect
that new customers will be buying a new MacBook Pro to go along with it,
and that has Firewire 800. Their next generation of hardware will
incorporate control as well as audio data

And will that overload FW400 thus making backward compatibilty impossible. I
doubt it.


Of course the real question is why would they want to use Firewire at all
now it is becoming more rare. The MOTU idea of combo FW and USB seems
more
logical to me at least.

PreSonus' choice for the next generation is Dante. The mixer includes a
one-computer license for the Dante Virtual Sound Card application that
allows a computer to recognize Dante-enabled audio devices that are
connected over a standard Ethernet network. For example, if you have their
AI speakers connected to the same network as the mixer, you'll not only be
able to get audio from the mixer to the speakers, but you'll be able to
adjust the DSP speaker management from the mixer (once the mixer's
firmware catches up). Focusrite has a whole line of Dante-enabled boxes
for audio production.

But Dante isn't the only game in town. While it's never been a problem to
connect between audio devices from diverse manufacturers using plain old
analog electricity, it'll be a while before you can connect different
brands of hardware over an Ethernet network

Exactly, and there's the rub. Let's hope a standard evolves before an
ethernet replacement happens.


Right, don't need to upgrade mine at the moment anyway. But the problem
never goes away, you just have to face built in obsolesence with all
computer equipment. It's been that way since my first in 1980 and will
probably be that way long after I'm dead.

We're both saying the same thing here. If you're in a part of the business
where you need to have the latest toys, then you should be getting paid
enough to continue to upgrade and just take it as a matter of course. This
stuff isn't all that expensive. But for tinkerers like me (and really
that's where most of the audio equipment sold today goes, it's not only a
pain in the butt to keep up, but a financial drain on our non- or
low-profit projects as well. Best advice is to assemble a system that
works, and stick with it, and with projects within its capabilities.

No argument there. The problem is it gets expensive when your computer can't
be fixed and you have to replace your audio hardware as well :-(

Trevor.