Where Are The Firewire Audio/midi Interfaces?, Inexplicable absence of what should be Options

[Levon River]

Firewire has been around for over ten years. Does anyone have any insight into why there are so precious few audio/midi interfaces utilizing this technology?

The field is glutted with USB interfaces, which only carry about 1/40 the bandwidth and information transfer capability of Firewire.

Of the few Firewire interfaces on the market, the cheapest I can find (MOTU's 828) starts at over $800.00--and that doesn't include MIDI, while being complete overkill on the audio side for my needs. Five years ago I expected to SOON see Firewire interfaces for audio and MIDI that would be affordable and accessible. Now there are quite a few under $500.00 using USB, but NONE in t hat price bracket using Firewire.

I think the market is ripe for a Firewire interface with, e.g., four audio inputs and two MIDI ins and outs priced for the masses. Why, oh, why was it not there years ago?

[rickenbacker]

Er, it was actually you who went off-topic first in your post of 15th August, where you described the Core Audio and Midi implementation pre-10.2 as "half-assed". You were also first to bring up the matter of companies demo-ing new releases at trade shows, using emagic's display of Logic on OS X at Summer NAMM 2001 to illustrate your point.

This is what I originally replied to. If someone makes a comment in that another participant wants to reply to, isn't that the point of these forums? If you don't like that, maybe you should stick to your own topic in the first place.

And as far as I'm aware, le petit martien is the moderator of these forums, not you.

As for FireWire, I don't think there's widespread enough use across the computer industry for the range of products to suddenly multiply, nor enough companies specialising in audio hardware. With PCs taking 95% of the computer market, USB 2.0 seems more likely for mass-market products. There you go - back on topic.