USB/FireWire/Thunderbolt Audio Interface (quality)

First, as you will see, I'm not big on USB for audio.

If you go with USB make sure it's not bus powered, make sure the company makes it's own drivers and does not rely on OSX's (system compliant) USB audio drivers. USB is controlled by the operating system and uses valuable CPU cycles, in my experience USB will always break down under load before Firewire or Thunderbolt. Also, the USB bus is noisy. A bus powered USB interface supplying phantom power to a condenser Mix usually has a noise floor in the -60 to -65db range. Similar to the computers built-in-audio.

Firewire has been good.

I don't have a lot of experience with Thunderbolt except setting it up on systems for friends/clients. On paper it looks amazing but early setups had a lot of problems with random noise and losing connection with the interface.. current users can give a better assessment.

Those are all digital communication protocols that only transmit the sampled data from the interface to the computer and back.

The *quality* of the recording does not depend on the transport protocol. However these interfaces also come with other differences that may affect the recording experience.

The electric noise issue Pancenter mentioned is in my experienced more a matter of good versus cheap electrical design and can happen with any interface type. The Focusrite USB interfaces don't suffer from it for example, whereas cheap firewire interfaces usually do.

The most important difference for actual recording work is really the quality of the connection. A connection that behaves well under high system load is tricky with all these communication protocols, but hardest with USB. That is as much a driver problem as it is a problem of the hardware. Good USB interfaces will do well, bad ones won't. The same is true for FireWire and Thunderbolt, though it's easier to get right. Even class compliant USB interfaces (ones that don't need a dedicated driver) can do a very good job there and come with the advantage of not being dependent on regularly updated drivers.

Summing up, it's much more important that you pick a well designed interface than worrying about the connector. I'd prefer FireWire, but would also go with USB if the Interface is well designed. Unfortunately, Firewire is on its death bed, and you'll typically end up using it with a thunderbolt firewire cable interface (which is no problem), so you might just as well go thunderbolt directly. The downside is that it is more expensive and not as mature as firewire. It's also overkill for small to medium channel counts.

Interfaces I can recommend from personal experience come from RME, Focusrite and MotU.

Cheers,

Jazz

Jazzmaniac wrote:

Those are all digital communication protocols that only transmit the sampled data from the interface to the computer and back.

The electric noise issue Pancenter mentioned is in my experienced more a matter of good versus cheap electrical design and can happen with any interface type. The Focusrite USB interfaces don't suffer from it for example, whereas cheap firewire interfaces usually do.

. Even class compliant USB interfaces (ones that don't need a dedicated driver) can do a very good job there and come with the advantage of not being dependent on regularly updated drivers.

Interfaces I can recommend from personal experience come from RME, Focusrite and MotU.

Cheers,

Jazz

Hi jazz M,

A couple of things...

My comment about USB electrical interference... especially if the Interface is bus powered and supplying phantom power holds true for every USB interface I've set up for clients, even the quality ones. Also, you mentioned class compliant not being dependent on regularly updated drivers. Are you saying OSX's USB software remains the same from version to version? In my experience there's been a variety of performance and connection issues over the past few years. MOTU makes solid drivers as does RME, Focusrite has had some problems... especially with their class compliant interfaces, that is, if you go by customers experiences posted here and on other boards.

I prefer to use USB for printing charts... :-) The main reason it's popular is it's cheap and every computer comes with it.

Pancenter wrote:

Hi jazz M,

A couple of things...

My comment about USB electrical interference... especially if the Interface is bus powered and supplying phantom power holds true for every USB interface I've set up for clients, even the quality ones.

I can assure you that a talented engineer can design a USB audio interface that is not noisy. And in my experience that is done too.

Also, you mentioned class compliant not being dependent on regularly updated drivers. Are you saying OSX's USB software remains the same from version to version? In my experience there's been a variety of performance and connection issues over the past few years. MOTU makes solid drivers as does RME, Focusrite has had some problems... especially with their class compliant interfaces, that is, if you go by customers experiences posted here and on other boards.

I prefer to use USB for printing charts... :-) The main reason it's popular is it's cheap and every computer comes with it.

I specifically meant the advantage of class compliant devices in terms of obselescence. You can use them in the future even if the manufacturer abandons the product. The class drivers that come with the OS won't always be the best, but they tend to get better. However that was specifically not my point.

I'd say we've experienced different issues with different interfaces. I just don't feel it's as easy to generalise, especially with the more recent USB interfaces. I've also never had issues with Focusrite's USB devices. I'm convinced that there's no rule linking signal quality with the choice of your digital computer interface.

Cheers,

Jazz

mactreouser wrote:

Hi Jazz,

I just love your reply with such useful info and details! Thanks a lot!

In fact, it seems the Electric Noises are from the DEVICES (audio interface), not the data cables (USB, Firewire or Thunderbolt) ? Which means the circuit and the built of the device wasn't that High Quality, therefore we always receiving such a unstable noise during recording? And, the electronic noise wasn't from the wall plugs? Any solution?

You haven't really describe the "noise" you've experienced. It could have a number of causes and is hard to diagnose remotely. Common causes are faulty units, bad electrical design, a broken cable, a bad power line, etc.

Cheers,

Jazz

JazzM,

I don't doubt what you're saying I know you have a lot of experience in this field but having measured the noise floor on many different devices over the years I've found USB to be the digital transfer protocol most susceptible to increased noise levels, especially when power is supplied by the host computer,

also found it to be the least reliable under heavy load. However... not many people use modern systems to record 12-16 tracks at one time.

Like I said, USB is popular because it's cheap and included with the machine, not necessarily because it's best.

If I had a choice of interface connections I'd probably go with Internal PCIe, Firewire/Thunderbolt and last, USB.

Reference this thread to read about the noise the OP is experiencing.

Bass Guitar "Ground Noise" during recording

best-

Firewire is dead... dude

ciu5781 wrote:

Firewire is dead... dude

At the consumer level... yes.

One thing that I would like to alert people about is that there is an issue with Thunderbolt that I heard about on a podcast recently. (I hear it in Merlin Mann's Voice in my head, but not sure) If they are touched, moved, or disturbed in anyway, they will sometimes break the connection. My experience is with the Mini Display Port cable that I have between my 5K iMac and my 2009 iMac. I could not figure out why the 2009 iMac would not go into Share Screen mode when I used Command F2. It turns out that it was simply a matter of unplugging and replugging the 5K iMac end. This would not have occurred to me without the heads-up from the podcast.

I say this not so much to discourage the use of Thunderbolt, but to be aware of it and its relatively simple fix. I'm using USB but I only use one input. USB type C sounds the most promising, but were not barely there yet.

Rick