One can usually upgrade their computer to support FireWire, but this would require purchasing additional hardware. USB devices can be used on almost any computer, because almost all computers contain USB ports. Conversely, most modern PCs do not have FireWire ports built-in.USB devices cannot be connected together in this fashion. For instance, you can connect two PreSonus FireStudio Projects together for a total of 20 inputs and 20 outputs. This means multiple FireWire devices of the same family can be connected together for additional inputs and outputs. FireWire devices have the ability to cascade or daisy-chain.Conversely, USB is used by a wide variety of hardware peripherals, resulting in an increase in the chance that a conflict could occur. Your system will most likely have a single controller for FireWire that shouldn't receive interference from other services or hardware on your system in a normal situation. FireWire is typically dedicated for audio/video purposes, and wouldn't be in use by other services on your computer.While seemingly a minor technical detail, this can impact performance and stability to some degree. A FireWire device can stream data in both directions at the same time, while USB requires the sent packets of data to finish transmission before the device can receive more data. This results in more stable synchronization and performance. FireWire streams data rather than packets data.This practically would apply only to interfaces with large numbers of inputs and outputs the difference in performance between a single or dual-channel USB or FireWire interface should be negligible. This results in the ability to utilize more inputs and outputs, as well as increased performance and stability. In general, FireWire devices support a higher bandwidth than USB 2.0, and therefore can send more data faster.Below are some of the common pros and cons for using a device with FireWire: Pros Despite this, most computers can be upgraded to obtain FireWire functionality at minimal cost.įireWire has long been a standard for both audio and video interfacing. Almost all modern computers feature at least two USB ports however, FireWire is somewhat more limited to the pro audio and video environment, and many budget PCs will not support FireWire out-of-the-box. Before purchasing an audio interface, the first step is to ascertain what type of communications your computer supports. Q: Should I choose a FireWire or USB audio interface?Ī: Most audio interfaces today communicate with your computer either though a FireWire connection or a USB connection.

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