Are you
getting lost in the variety of connectors available for audio interfaces? In
that case I would like to pull your attention towards a recent Sound on Sound
article once more. The article ‘Making a Connection’ is found in the
August 2015 issue.
It compares the specs of different connectors. I’ll comment and add my own
reflections in this post.
Some topics covered in the article
-
Bandwidth:
the article addresses the difference between theoretical and actual bandwidth
for connectors. (Ever found yourself in a FireWire vs. USB discussion?—this
article brings technical clarity to the argument.)
-
Generations:
what is backwards compatible? –and what are the grey zones you need to look out
for.
-
Latency:
Why your old FireWire devices may still be faster than many USB-devices and how
USB3 is improving.
-
Thunderbolt:
an overview over generations and current/ future development.
“For people buying
right now, I’m afraid the market is in a state of flux as the various standards
evolve.”
=Pete Gardner, Sound
on Sound=
Thoughts and trends
When I held
my first studio-job we were still recording on tape. In the early 2000’s I
would book a studio if I needed to get things done. In the mid-2000’s I bought
my first interface and the market has evolved a lot since then. Some trends right
now are:
-
As
the quote above states, the market for multi-track interfaces is more complex
than before.
o
As
higher track-count has developed for USB, it has taken market from FireWire.
o
The
USB standard in particular, has very different performance between different
generations.
o
FireWire
is still very much in use on interfaces, but not much on computers. This makes
compatibility to Thunderbolt important and the long-term future of the standard
is uncertain.
o
PCIe
is increasingly less relevant in the semi-pro market thanks to connectors like
Thunderbolt, mostly the pro-market remains (notably, Avid).
o
Network
plugs (RJ45) have become an important contribution to multi-track audio
recording (through the Dante-standard). This is natural as it is found much
more frequently than Thunderbolt across all brands and types of computers. Focusrite, a
major name in FireWire-interfaces, seems to be making a transition into:
- While they still make FireWire-interfaces (and ensure its compatibility with
Thunderbolt), these will probably be phased out over the coming years
 |
| Focusrite Clarett with Thunderbolt connectivity |
Reflections and Prospects
FireWire
I have been
a huge fan of FireWire for a long time. It provides solid track-count and
crucially, low latency. But does everyone need this low latency? The answer is,
no. Low latency is needed if artists are listening to themselves through a DAW
while recording. If you work mostly ‘in the box’ and hardly record acoustic
performance you may be less interested in latency. Similarly, if you do
live-sound recordings straight off a mixer, latency is not a factor you need to
consider.
PCIe
Another
standard I have been a fan of is the PCIe; this is because of the high specs it
can achieve. As you may have read on this blog before, I was very ambivalent about the new
Mac Pro. It is an
impressive computer indeed, but it removed the first-choice connector for
professional studios entirely from Apple’s products. Connection to PCIe can
still be obtained through an adapter (more things to buy and store). In Apple’s
defence it could be claimed that it is these sorts of ‘leaps of faith’ that sometimes
kick us out of the nest so to speak—and makes us embrace another and more
modern way of working.
High-end Equipment with USB
When Yamaha
released their new 01v96i some years ago they got much praise for the quality. However,
the screen and menus seemed old and some of us were surprised of the relative low number of tracks you
could record with it (I know this is subjective). Yamaha were clear that they
had chosen the USB2 standard to provide good stability and compatibility with a
range of computers. Yamaha have some of the most stable digital mixers on the
market so the argument makes sense. The choice was still somewhat conservative.
If Yamaha’s thinking remains un-changed in the future, we might see a
distinction between mixers that can be digitally cascaded or have peripherals
attached (ex: hard-drives on a Thunderbolt set-up), and those who can’t do this.
Mixers for Recording
Will all new mixers have multi-track recording-facilities
in the years to come? No, I don’t believe so. We will continue to see capabilities
from simple two-track USB-recording and up. Mostly because manufacturers don’t
want their products compete with their own siblings. Take a brand like Allen
& Heath—all Zed mixers are fitted with high-resolution 2in/
2out USB recording capacity. If the same mixers could record high-resolution
multi-track it would undercut the market for their own R16 and GSR24. On the other hand we see a lot of affordable Midas/ Behringer mixers set up with some sort of multi-track
capacity via FireWire or USB (caught speed after Behringer bought Midas). This,
together with the low prices is clearly a move to take market shares, and if
successful it could force other manufacturers to provide similar capabilities
at the same prices.
 |
| Midas Venice F32 with full FireWire connectivity (48kHz/ 24bit) |
 |
| DigiCo SD7 |
What will the future of connectors look like?
-
USB
& Thunderbolt for small-scale systems, home-studio owners and semi-pro
equipment.
-
Thunderbolt
& RJ45 for larger scale pro-end systems (I don’t include MADI, lightpipe or
similar here, as these will need another interface to connect to the computer).
USB might be added to the list if the standard keeps developing, but it will currently be better suited to semi-pro applications rather than pro, when
track-count and latency matters.
How fast
will the transition away from FireWire, USB 1 & 2 and PCIe happen? It depends;
here are a couple of thoughts:
-
Manufacturers
will still differentiate their products into different price-brackets. Currently,
this means you are likely to pay more for a Tunderbolt-interface than a
FireWire or USB-interface even if they are of comparable quality (Thunderbolt
is still a buzz-word). When Thunderbolt-equipment becomes more common, the
price will slowly decline which will again increase the amount of users—eventually
it will take over for FireWire and partially for PCIe. Thunderbolt and the
Dante-standard on the RJ45-plug will be the two main competitors in
high-capacity audio interfacing.
AVID will keep producing their PCIe cards for a
while longer, but they will be increasingly challenged by the likes of
Focusrite and Universal Audio who use RJ45 and Tunderbolt. Eventually, I can
imagine even Avid dropping the PCIe standard, but have no idea when.
Conclusion
The market will
remain in a ‘state of flux’ for a while still. A lot more products will be
available at sensible prices in a few years—when the period of ‘flux’ is over
for this time. For a good read on the status of the available connectors, do
check out Sound on Sound’s article. Hope I have provided you with some
food for thought!
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| (Photo Credit) |
