@dcc
> Everyone uses usb for audio
I don't :marseysmug3:
> its digital to audio it makes no difference what connector it uses
Connector doesn't make the difference of course, it's lack of DMA that does — USB devices can't have DMA. Or I don't know, maybe now they can — they keep changing this thing perpetually adding everything and the kitchen sink to it. But in the past they couldn't and Firewire was a much better choice.
> A dac is a dac and usb dacs are mostly the only ones that even have outputs for good amps.
Yeah, but you can also use digital output — even soundcards built into motherboards often still have optical outputs, no need for USB. For playback I mean, when you need multiple inputs it's not an option, but neither it is what consumers do.
I know that it's what a lot of people use, but USB is still absolute shit for audio — if one was designing a bus for audio specifically, no one would ever come up with USB. Firewire was great, but even when it was still a thing it was mostly popular among audio and video professionals, only Sony and Apple laptops had a Firewire controller and maybe a few high-end models by HP and Dell too — for mass consumer this was never an option, that's how USB cards came to be.
In side-by-side comparison USB sucks horse's ass: it consumes extra CPU power just for IO, which is bad when you need it for something else like mixing and have a dozen of tracks in that mix — it used to be a really big deal when CPUs didn't have the computing power they have today). Some professional cards even had dual Firewire/USB connectivity, in case you wanted to have decent card, but decided to cheap out on computer — so you would later have an option to rethink, but keep the card.
@kaia @newt