WaterMan Posted June 13, 2005 Author Share Posted June 13, 2005 Originally posted by Anderton: Re PCI vs. Firewire: A PCI card will always have a "tighter" connection with the guts of a computer than Firewire or USB. There are some excellent comments about this in RME's FireFace manual (I think they're pretty objective because they make both PCI and Firewire solutions). Obviously, FireWire interfaces work very well, and can handle plenty of tracks at reasonable sample rates (ie. not 192kHz!). I tested FW with the Mackie Onyx and it rocked, plus the Onyx serves as an audio interface too. Firewire is more transportable, convenient, easier to set up, and adaptable if you change platforms. The tradeoff is a slight performance hit when you're pushing your machine. Thanks again, Craig. Given that most of my needs are (analog) audio, and that I'll not likely be pushing the machine -- no more than 8 to 10 tracks -- looks like Onyx and Firewire is the way to go for me. Beauty of the mixer is it allows me to have everything connected and ready to record. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Kantola Posted June 13, 2005 Share Posted June 13, 2005 Here's a late contribution to the discussion: We are currently building a hybrid monster for audio use, a desktop computer fitted into a suitcase/toolbox, creating a bulky and ugly laptop with TFT-screen and all. Why? Some reasons: 1. laptops will always have noisy fans 2. laptops don't have PCI card slots, and extensions like Magma products are Expensive. 3. laptops are generally not very upgradeable 4. laptops seldom have several Firewire ports as standard 5. desktops are too heavy for travelling by plane 6. desktops are easy to get spareparts for So, in our case, neither really worked... Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblue1 Posted June 13, 2005 Share Posted June 13, 2005 Could you post inside and outside pictures of your "mega-lunchbox" when you're done? BTW... what processor are you basing it around? bookmark these: news.google.com | m-w dictionary | wikipedia encyclopedia | Columbia Encyclopedia TK Major / one blue nine | myspace.com/onebluenine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henchman Posted June 13, 2005 Share Posted June 13, 2005 Originally posted by Martin Kantola: Here's a late contribution to the discussion: We are currently building a hybrid monster for audio use, a desktop computer fitted into a suitcase/toolbox, creating a bulky and ugly laptop with TFT-screen and all. Why? Some reasons: 1. laptops will always have noisy fans 2. laptops don't have PCI card slots, and extensions like Magma products are Expensive. 3. laptops are generally not very upgradeable 4. laptops seldom have several Firewire ports as standard 5. desktops are too heavy for travelling by plane 6. desktops are easy to get spareparts for So, in our case, neither really worked... Martin You think laptop fans are noisy. Wait untill you power up your mobile desktop. Magma cases are cheap used. How many slots do you need? What kind of cards will you be using. I only use UAD-1 crads with mine, and was able to minimize the size of the magma chassis to almost 1/4 of the original size. IMDB Credit list President George Washington: "The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian Religion." President Abraham Lincoln: "The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my religion." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Kantola Posted June 13, 2005 Share Posted June 13, 2005 theblue1 spoke: Could you post inside and outside pictures of your "mega-lunchbox" when you're done? BTW... what processor are you basing it around?Yes, I'll take some pics when it's up and running! Excellent idea! At the moment, there's a Celeron 2.4 in there. Less power = less heat, was the thought. Should still be enough for our purposes. If not, it can be replaced. Henchman added: You think laptop fans are noisy. Wait untill you power up your mobile desktop. Magma cases are cheap used. How many slots do you need? What kind of cards will you be using You might be right about the noise, but I'll go all the way and make it a WATERCOOLED monsterlunchbox if I have to... Now then we'll get some nice pics for you guys, and try that on laptop... Seems I should have shopped for second-hand Magmas on the net... It's so hard to find unusual stuff like that over here, the thought never even occurred to me, thanks for the info! We only need 2-3 slots. One is for a basic Pulsar card, which serves as a low-latency monitoring mixer and B-format decoder etc. In addition, there will be a FW400 (or 800) card for connecting two FireFaces and the hard disk(s). Maybe I'll pop in a SCSI card too. Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theblue1 Posted June 13, 2005 Share Posted June 13, 2005 Just in case the Celeron doesn't perform to your desires (and there are some compromises built into them, even the latest, the Celeron M) -- you can get an adapter for a Pentium M that will go into some mobo's. Tom's Hardware Guide has an article on such a drop in conversion (which they then overclocked a little over 10% so the 2.2 GHz chip would run at 2.5 GHz -- delivering, they said, performance that overall surpassed an Atholon 64 and a Pentium 4 EE.) http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050525/index.html (same link as in my post farther up in the thread) bookmark these: news.google.com | m-w dictionary | wikipedia encyclopedia | Columbia Encyclopedia TK Major / one blue nine | myspace.com/onebluenine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Kantola Posted June 14, 2005 Share Posted June 14, 2005 Theblue1, thanks a million for this, very valuable info!!! Will let you know how the project evolves with pics and all. Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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