Thunderbolt to FireWire adapters

Digi 002 gets power from the ac plug in the wall.

Oh, yeah. I should have thought. But don't you have a smaller, simple audio device like mine (Focusrite Saffire 24 Pro) if it gets enough power from the Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter?

As a point of comparison, maybe it would be useful to know what kind of power has been usually output from the FW800 port of MBPs so far. I now recall that sometimes I used my 2009 17" as power source not only for my FF400 audio card but also for a little 2"5 FireWire LaCie HD. I recorded 16 racks in 24/48 without any problems with this setup (the 8 external preamps and AD/DA converters transmitted thru ADAT optic being mains powered, of course).

Thanks maarvold, glad your test works!!

I also received my adapter today and did some quick tests with my Digi 002.. I forgot to install drivers which gave me a scare at first, but once I got them installed and properly set-up the hardware in pro tools it was working excellent. I am using a MBPr and Pro-Tools 10.. I recorded some midi Piano using Xpand2 which went very smoothly, CPU was running around 12% with a nice full grand pre-set.. I didn't do a whole lot of testing but everything seemed in order.. I had the most trouble with Pro-Tools' incredibly challenging set-up menus

To confirm, you folks are testing these devices without the A/C adapters and everything is working?

No, the Digi 002 connects to a wall outlet and cannot work without that..

Sorry, I know there's some questions as far as the power output is concerned but the Digi002 provides no insight into that.. It is a serious relief to know that the adapter allows the data transfer we need without any stuttering though.. I was starting to worry the technology was not quite there yet and was fearing some latency issues.. So on that front, everything seems great..

My adaptor arrived. Tested it with three devices and nothing worked, each was powered but not mounted. So I re-booted the laptop and then it worked fine with the following;

• Lacie rugged drive with bus power, was reading files fine
• Lacie drive with mains power, was reading files fine
• Hasselblad H4D-40 camera thethered to laptop (which was running Hasselblad Phocus software) and could and see the images on screen as usual.

I had been worried that there might not be enough power coming through. Likely needs more intensive testing as I only used a short FW cable out of the TB > FW adaptor, but so far so good. Thanks Apple 🙂

Adapter was waiting for me on return from a business trip. Shut down, plugged in the adapter, rebooted, plugged in and powered up UA Apollo Quad. Shows up, sounds good.

Apple never said that the adapter had any adverse effect on FW transfer speed, so if it lets AC-powered FW devices such as a 02 or Apollo Quad behave as expected, it's no surprise... They did say that the adapter's output power is limited to 7w, which seems unsufficient for most professional bus-powered audio cards.

As somebody said above, we still can hope that other brands will provide better adapters than Apple in the future. As for me, I would certainly welcome a box with two FW800 and 4 USB ports in the back (Audiocards, HDs) and an Express34 slot in the front (SXS cards, RME's MADIFace)

In the meantime we'll have to carry extra batteries when recording in the field. This is where blind faith in progress leads to, I suppose ;-)

strobe_flash wrote:

My adaptor arrived. Tested it with three devices and nothing worked, each was powered but not mounted. So I re-booted the laptop and then it worked fine with the following;

• Lacie rugged drive with bus power, was reading files fine
• Lacie drive with mains power, was reading files fine
• Hasselblad H4D-40 camera thethered to laptop (which was running Hasselblad Phocus software) and could and see the images on screen as usual.

I had been worried that there might not be enough power coming through. Likely needs more intensive testing as I only used a short FW cable out of the TB > FW adaptor, but so far so good. Thanks Apple 🙂

Interesting. I had the opposite issue: things worked fine if externally powered, but nothing worked if only using bus power.

Bus power is not working for me w/: Iomega eGo 2.5" FW drive, or MOTU Ultralite Hybrid. Both work if powered externally.

I am using a Macbook Air FWIW. Would like to know if this is a Macbook Air issue, or the adpater issue.

I have Mbox 2 pro sound card which has 2 FireWire 400 port. Now a have bought MacBook Pro Retina which has 2 thunderbolt port. I need your suggestions as to how can I connect my sound card to MacBook pro retina.

What are the cables I would require for my home studio.

Thanks

Jasbir

valentino1870 wrote:

I have Mbox 2 pro sound card which has 2 FireWire 400 port. Now a have bought MacBook Pro Retina which has 2 thunderbolt port. I need your suggestions as to how can I connect my sound card to MacBook pro retina.

What are the cables I would require for my home studio.

1 Firewire 400 to Firewire 800 cable

1 Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter

Complementing jeflear's answer, it is important to establish if the Mbox device is totally self-powered. As I understand from previous discussions, the TB to FW adapter has limited power available to the FW peripheral, below that normally available in full-fledged ports, limited by the capabilities of the TB specs.

Yes, the Mbox is externally powered.