FF400 works great with WD MyBook Studio as a hub and the hard drive's 2 firewire cables included (one 800 to 800 and one 800 to 400). Direct firewire 400 connection is broken as expected.

imac 2.8 (2008 edition)

Hi there. Absolutely new on the RME board, so "hello" for a start.

I'm working on a white non-aluminum 2006 built iMac 17' 2 Ghz, running OS X Tiger. If I check the specks while booting I cannot find a TI entry. Can anyone tell me whether I will have problems if I buy & use a FF 800 ?

Thanks for any help!

Alexander

hmm. I'll do it again and see if I get better info about my system. For f***'s sake, I hope it'll run RME's hardware.... *holding my breath*

Thanks, Gilbert!

I seem to remember reading that the white iMacs didn't have a compatibility problem with the Fireface even though they used the Lucent Firewire chipset as well. It was the new alum. iMacs and new Firewire 800 chipsets that caused problems.

But good news! After I installed the latest 1.67 firmware and 2.62 OS X driver update,  my Fireface 400 now works ok, even when connected to the Firewire 400 port, and without needing the external power supply, on my Alum. 20" iMac. You may still need the external power supply if you are connecting mics requiring phantom power, I'm not too sure on that one as I've really only been using the Fireface as a playback soundcard.

I'm not getting the audio dropouts in iTunes anymore. Good thing too, as I was just about to sell my Fireface and get an Apogee Duet or Motu Ultralite.

[EDIT]

Ok, I know now why the Fireface 400 was behaving properly. I had a video capture card connected to the Firewire bus and it had no power switch so it was constantly on unless I unplugged it. I think the video capture card may have been preventing the Firewire bus resets from occurring.

I have since moved the capture card to another computer and I decided to test the Fireface today (been using inbuilt sound mainly) and I'm getting audio drop outs again.

ah that's good news! was thinking of getting a new macPro, but gee, they are somewhat expensive (although they never were so cheap). will mull it over.... I need more than 2 ghz core 2 duo anyway. Logic 8 sucks more power than I thought it would.

cheers all 'round

Alexander

Use an external power supply for the FF.

Greetings,

I am using non of your products, so excuse me if I post here, but I just wanted to let everyone know, that pretty much the same problem also happens with the Yamaha GO46 external firewire soundcard, when used with an Agere firewire adapter.

I was using the built in Agere/Lucent-Firewire adapter of my Asus Motherboard P5E3 DELUXE/WiFi-AP

I had a 40% success rate for the PC recognizing my sound card and doing a handshake, but I wasn't able to hot plug out / plug in, because then it would never recognized the card again.

I found the solution on this forum - thanks a lot! :-)

I've purchased a brand new PCIe FireWire card:
SIIG FireWire 800 DV-Kit NN-831012-S2 which cost me with shipping and tax over $100, but now my troubles are gone and I can even hot plug-in, plug-out the sound-card and the OS will always recognize it.

ASUS were not helpful at all - after describing the problem in great detail that was the ignorant response of their Lead Tech Support Engineer:

[q]We have no known issues with the firewire chip. If you are having problems please feel free to submit your motherboard for repair by calling 510-739-3777 Opt. 2.[/q]

Oh well - guess I won't buy from them again.

Greetings,
Leander.

Damn!
Switched from PC to a black Macbook and just found out that it has the Lucent Chip :-O

I was looking for a Soundcard for liveperformance, so....FF400 is definetly NOT working?

EDIT: Hm, seems to be fine for some people.
Weird issue

Hi, I just bought a Fireface 400 and I'm very disappointed to find out it will not work with my brand new MBP 2.8ghz... this is a major refresh of the Macbook Pro line and the fact Apple have chosen to go with this Agere FW chip after so much time would seem to imply that they feel no need to address issues it. With this in mind, do you not feel that making your product compatible with the iMac and MBP line is vitally important? If other manufacturers can do it, I fail to understand why RME cannot.

Please tell me straight-up whilst I am within my return window on the Fireface 400; will you be making it compatible with the latest Apple products? Or are you still declaring your Firewire products incompatible with all new iMacs and MBPs?

Thanks,

Alex

note: every time I post this it duplicates it. I've tried deleting just one and it deletes the other. I'm using Firefox 3 on a Mac.

It's great to hear some solid info on the new MBP and the FF400. I want to get a 2.8 too, but wasn't sure if it would work with the FF400. Glad to hear you got it working by putting another device through first. I'd be interested in hearing about any ExpressCard Firewire adapter solutions and how well they work with the 2.8 too.

In the meanwhile, I bought my FF400 first, and it's a 2nd hand one and it seems to be dodgy. =/ May have to take it back to the seller for a refund and buy brand new. ^_^

I too am extremely disappointed with the Fireface400/MacBook Pro situation. I bought a Fireface 400 over a year ago and have been checking these forums almost daily ever since in the hope of a PROPER resolution to the problem before paying thousands of dollars for a laptop.

In the meantime I am using my old desktop PC with a Multiface and that works perfectly.

This Apple/RME problem just seems to keep dragging on and we, the customers, are left to try numerous workarounds in the hope that the system MIGHT work. Unfortunately I am not in the position to spend that much money only to find the system doesn't work properly. I have already spent money on an interface which I thought would be great and I really don't know what to do with it now.

Very frustrating.

Regards,
Andrew.

Hello,

i have a Macbook (13,3', White, Early 2008) and a FF400.
I have done some tests an found only minimal problems with the latency.
I?ve connected all analog-outs to the analog-ins and played and recorded a 1kHz sine-wave through it for 5 minutes. No problems at 5ms Latency.
With 3ms Latency there where some dropouts. I think that this is OK - what do you think about it?
If its possible, i will loopback the optical-interface in addition with the analog ones and see if it works with 16 channels in and out.
I don?t know by now if i can loopback the adat-interface - i have to read the manual.:rolleyes: I hope so much that it will work with all ins and outs.
I like my FF400 very much (Routing, Sound, etc, and i look forward for DigiCheck on the mac in pleasant anticipation!) - and i like my macbook.
I hope that they will do their job together for a long long time. (but i think that this will depend on apple)
best regards

Edit:

i forgot to mention that the tests were done with the highest available resolution. I remember 192kHz, 24bit.

It is indeed... :roll

For your kind perusal, here's a thread on Gearslutz on the subject...

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

My Macbook (not Pro) is working fine with the FF400 - it?s the last model with built-in FW400.
So there is no need for me to look what chip is built into it. It works. Sorry for the MBP-Users.
(I think that dropouts at 3ms Latency are not a big problem - i just tweak it up to 5ms and everything is ok.)

Because of 2ms difference?
Any verifiable comparsion values?
I suspect that you want to badmouth something.

At 3ms there are some dropouts.
At 5ms no dropouts at all.
So, where is the problem? This was a test!
I can work with 5ms Latency with no restrictions
- and I don?t believ that other laptops are much faster.

So, values please!

Notice: A sound wave needs 3ms per meter!!!

To all the people who want to know it:
Macbook Early 2008 is working fine with FF400.
Don?t buy a Pro.

Maybe i hit the nail on the head when i said the RME 400 works fine with my 5 year old PC but not on my  New Mac Pro . I hope for all our sake RME are not falling behind. Things get smaller and cheaper and maybe like cars they just dont make them like that anymore . But this is so called progress i dont like it but,  and its a big BUT, you got to keep up or get left behind  and at the moment i have a Mac Pro and a fireface 400 that together make no sound .  Will Mac  be going back to the expensive chipsets ? emmm ,, are we stuffed wholesale whats the solution ,, now laugh its better than jumping off a bridge.

Well, Zawinul does have a point here. Eventhough I can live with the solution to put some other device in between it means additional costs of at least another 50 Euro. Not everyone is willing to pay for that. It's still a kick-ass solution though, so you get what you pay for. :-)

One last thing!

Just discovered the walkthrough on this problem: I sold my FF 400 (got 550 Euro) and got an Apogee Duet (399 Euro) and suddenly everything works flawlessly!

Easy as 1, 2 3!

Hi,

I think I disagree here, Why ?
well Apple have made MBP with Texas Instruments firewire chipset
like MBP early 2008 and this laptop works nicely with FF800 here
and I can't blame anyone rant

regards S-EH

I think the reason why they move to Agere (Lucent) is simple: Smaller physical size and lower cost. Do they care that 0.01% of their user base is having trouble (and many of them are switching to Apogee, a close partner of them?)? Probably not.

me too... i feel so.... f**ked...?

this is my last apple computer...

I think there?s only two ways out of this predicament for RME;

1. Officially state that Mac?s with Lucent (Agere) FW-chips are incompatible with professional audio equipment together with a technical explanation of why.

2. Fix the FW-chip in the FireFace interfaces so they work with Lucent (if possible).

I think they need to be a bit more specific about it and state it more clearly on their webpage and maybe a press release in order to get some attention from the audio community.

http://www.rme-audio.de/en_support_tech … ire_compat

Not a word about Lucent here?

well i own an iMac 2,66ghz 20'' aluminium...
the same problems as everybody who owns them.

I readed the f*cking 4 pages and i have no solution... maybe it's better to change topic title.. u.U
well to resume this all 4 pages I think that there are 3 solutions..
1) Use a Lacie HD to use as a hub, I tried with 2 HDs, one Iomega(don't work) and Lacie(working, but this HD is not mine...) and i had the dropout audio in playbac, not in recording so... no alarming but disturbing to follow the audio...
2) Use the Belkin FireWire Hub, don't know if there are dropout audios or but 2 or 3 users are saying that this works... how good?
3) Use a F800 to F400 but Meld is saying that he has the audio dropouts... (anybody else tested?)

*EDIT 4) the repeater wire of firewire linked here... i'll try this one http://www.lindy.de/ieee1394a-firewire- … 32908.html

well can anybody up the more information for that 3 points which will be more useful to people than discusing about chipsets...

thank you! by the way! i tried RME FF400 thru a G5 and it seems to be high quality! ... hope to use with my iMac...