mains or bus powered?

Electronic Music Production // Dark Arts
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gavisthename
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mains or bus powered?

Post by gavisthename »

Does anyone know if a Saffire pro 14 will perform any differently if it is mains powered instead of just powered by the FireWire port?

Would there be an increase in headphone amp gain?
Would there be less noise/chatter coming through the monitors?
Would there be more headroom?

Any ideas? ;)

Program
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Re: mains or bus powered?

Post by Program »

I can't tell you about that specific card, but I noticed with my FW Audiophile that it benefits from not being powered thru firewire. There was no noise coming out of the speakers in my case so i always use its power adapter.

gavisthename
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Re: mains or bus powered?

Post by gavisthename »

Thanks mate, gonna do some tests later to see if I can get a noise reduction ... If I can find the pissing plug!

gavisthename
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Re: mains or bus powered?

Post by gavisthename »

Tried plugin the saffire into the mains aswell as the firewire port. I'm still getting chatter when the computer loads or something ... looks like the problem goes much deeper!

Program
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Re: mains or bus powered?

Post by Program »

I'm sorry to hear that, maybe its that evil ground loop thing that's causing it. There's ground loop isolators that supposedly solve that if the interference is coming from the computer.

gavisthename
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Re: mains or bus powered?

Post by gavisthename »

Well I've spent all my moneys on my sub now ... so I'm gonna be buzzing and hissing for the foreseeable future! :lol:

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melville
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Re: mains or bus powered?

Post by melville »

If your running firewire interfaces off their psu and still getting power noise issues, you want a 4 pin not the standard 6 pin firewire cable. The missing two pins are the power connections. Solves most of these issues as the power is obviously not sent onto the interface any longer. I've also had to go down this route with a few of the bands I've teched for to stop interfaces blowing firewire ports. Not a good thing mid tour!

gavisthename
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Re: mains or bus powered?

Post by gavisthename »

Awesome thanks for the info mel ... I'll look into that. Would the 4pin firewire cable be available for the new iMacs? The firewire port changed with the new iMacs, so I had to buy an adapter from 400 to 800. This probably has nothing to do with the pins...

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Críoch
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Re: mains or bus powered?

Post by Críoch »

melville wrote:If your running firewire interfaces off their psu and still getting power noise issues, you want a 4 pin not the standard 6 pin firewire cable. The missing two pins are the power connections. Solves most of these issues as the power is obviously not sent onto the interface any longer. I've also had to go down this route with a few of the bands I've teched for to stop interfaces blowing firewire ports. Not a good thing mid tour!
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melville
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Re: mains or bus powered?

Post by melville »

I've never looked for an 800 to four pin 400 lead, but I bet they're out there. I know you can get 800 to 4 pin mini firewire, so don't see why not full size too.

gavisthename
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Re: mains or bus powered?

Post by gavisthename »

thanks for your help Mel ... definitely gonna be cyber shopping for that!

I did notice that when I used the phone inputs in the back of the speakers from my audio interface that there was no noise. I'm wondering if I get xlr to phone leads this might also solve the problem as the dreaded earth pins will not be there.

gavisthename
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Re: mains or bus powered?

Post by gavisthename »

Well it didn't solve the problem... Looks like I'm gonna have to go fishing for a FireWire cable


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