[linrad] Presonus FireBox and Linrad, Winrad, and Rocky with the SoftRock

[w3sz <comcast.net; w3sz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, All,

I got a Presonus FireBox 24 Bit /96 kHz sampling rate soundbox on Saturday  
at Dayton, and thought I should report on my results with it to the  
Winrad, Linrad, and SoftRock reflectors as there have been questions /  
mentions of this card on each of these reflectors, and I did have some  
significant 'issues' with the installation and use of the card.

Today I got around to hooking up the FireBox and playing with it and one  
of my v6.0 SoftRocks on 80 and 40 meters, using the PTS synthesizer as LO  
as usual.

The most severe problem with the FireBox occurs with Rocky 1.5, and I  
discuss it at the end of this email.

Thus far I have tested the FireBox using Windows XP on two computers.   
This first is my Dell Inspiron 600m Laptop.  This has a 1.6 GHz Pentium M  
with 512MB of RAM.  I have also tested the FireBox using Windows XP in my  
Dell Dimiension 8400 which has a 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 with 1.5 GB of RAM.

Both ot these computers did not come with a firewire port and thus needed  
to have a firewire port added, and I ran into some unexpected and  
troublesome issues with these ports.

I belatedly discovered the following 'small print' at the bottom of a page  
on the Presonus website that was referenced from their FireBox FAQ page  
[ http://presonus.com/compatibility.html is the URL] :
------
Hardware Incompatibility

- ATI RADEON 9000/9001 IGP video chipset.  Symptoms are consistent clicks  
and pops during audio playback.  This video chipset is only found in PC  
laptops and is entirely integrated as the computer's only video  
controller.  We strongly recommend that you do not get a system with this  
chipset, as there is currently no workaround for this incompatibility.

- USB/firewire and s400/s800 combo cards are not compatible.  Symptoms are  
usually no audio recording/playback but device will install and sync,  
erratic audio performance and rarely will not allow the device to install  
or sync.  We recommend a firewire card that ONLY has s400 firewire  
connections and preferably with a Texas Instruments or VIA chipset.

- Firewire cards with NEC chipsets are not compatible.  Symptoms are  
similar or the same as combo cards.
-----

Some but not all of my problems were predicted based on the above.

It is NOT easy to find out what chipset a particular Firewire card uses,  
although I was eventually able to do it for each of the cards I tested.

I tested an Adaptec FireConnect 4300 PCI Card in the Dimension 8400.  This  
has a Texas Instruments Chipset, is not a combo card, and works fine as  
predicted from the above.

Also in the Dimension 8400 I tested a StarTech PCI Firewire 800 Card.   
This is an 800/400 combo.  With this card in place the Firebox was never  
recognized by the computer.  This has Texas Instrument chipset.  It was a  
total failure and I plan to return it.

In the Inspiron 600m Laptop I tested an Adaptec AFW-1430V FireConnect  
Notebook Cardbus Card.  This used the NEC Chipset. Linrad and Winrad and  
CoolEdit all lock up at all speeds tested with this card.  I returned it.

Also in the Laptop I tested the Dynex DX-FC202 400 Notebook PCMCIA card.   
It works at low sampling rates only.  This was a surprise, as it uses the  
VIA chipset and is not a combo card.  It 'should' have worked.

SIIG FireWire 800 CardBus.  This was a pleasant surprise, although not a  
complete success.  It is a Texas Instruments chipset based 400/800 combo  
card.  Thus it would not be expected to work.  But it worked somewhat  
better than the Dynex, working at up to 48 kHz sampling rates without  
problems.

It may be that the skipping and breakup I have when I try to exceed 48 kHz  
sampling rate on the laptop are not secondary to the Firewire cards.  But  
I am able to play back previously recorded 96000 Hz sampling rate wave  
files and process them in Linrad and Winrad with no problems on the laptop  
when using the onboard sound [as discusses several months ago].

Although the FIrebox is reported to have better dynamic range than the  
Delta44, it has two problems relative to the Delta44 when used with my  
SoftRock 6.0.

First of all, its spectrum is signficantly less flat at 96000 Hz sampling  
rate.  Look at
http://home.comcast.net/~w3sz/firebox1.gif
and
http://home.comcast.net/~w3sz/delta44-1.gif
to appreciate this.

Secondly, there is a problem with imaging with the Firebox that is not  
there with the Delta44.  Look at the same gif files at 24KHz and 76 KHz  
and also 17-18 kHz and 68-69 kHz to see what I mean.  There are image  
problems with the Firebox that are not present with the Delta44.  I  
checked and rechecked the connections to the Firebox to make sure they  
were solid and that the connectors were fully seated.  I used the same  
cable for both the Firebox and the Delta44.  So, while I would suspect a  
cable problem on the basis of the problem described, the cable is the same  
as that used for the Delta44 and the connections were carefully checked  
and no problems were found.

To make these comparisons between the Delta44 and the FireBox I just  
unplugged the 1/4 inch phono plugs coming from the SoftRock output to the  
Firebox and then plugged them into the Delta44 breakout box.

As an aside for those of you looking for hen's teeth, the red coloring of  
the main spectrum in the firebox gif is because, with its increased gain  
in the central part of the spectrum, the amplitude level just crosses the  
threshold that was set for 'strong' signals in Linrad. Nothing more.

So the Delta44 seems a better choice.  Since I have not come close to  
saturating it here, the loss of dynamic range is outweighed by the other  
two factors noted.

I AM using the Firebox as OUTPUT from Linrad and Winrad [but not from  
Rocky--see below], as I can just plug my Heil Headset into it and it has a  
nice headphone volume control.  But I don't know that I would recommend  
paying $300 for that functionality.  The Delta44 is much cheaper and to me  
does a better job in ways I consider important.

And now to the major problem I have with the FireBox and Rocky.   With  
ROCKY 1.5 there is NO evidence of any signal when the Firebox is used as  
input.  This is with the proper input selected under 'settings', of  
course.  And if I select the Firebox as output for Rocky, and the Delta44  
as input, then I get input to Rocky and a nice spectral display, but no  
audio out.  So Rocky seems to be able to get NO signal into or out to the  
FireBox.  Why this happens, I have no idea. THe FIrebox does fine with  
output from Linrad and Winrad, and with standard Windows Sounds, and even  
plays my windows MP3 CDs!  I am listening to a nice stereo recording of  
Bill Evans playing thru the FireBox as I type this note, and it sounds  
great!

I haven't tried Linux yet.  But I believe there is BeBob available as a  
Linux Driver for the Firebox, and so if I can get it working there [or  
not] I will report back.

Any helpful comments on the above would be welcome.  If you have gotten it  
working with an addon Firewire card and Rocky 1.5, I'd be most interested  
in your recommendations!

73,

Roger Rehr
W3SZ

--
Roger Rehr
W3SZ
http://www.nitehawk.com/w3sz/

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