Any advantage to Firewire storage interface with a Firewire DAC?

[bmckenney]

I am curious if there is any performance advantage when using a Firewire DAC and the music storage is also on the Firewire serial bus. Or would you put your music storage on USB and keep it away from Firewire? Or would any of the options perform the same in a music server and DAC system?

 

I do mean more from a playback or transport point of view. Not ripping.

 

[EatMoreCarrots]

I was wondering the same thing - My Mac Mini only has the one Firewire out which I am currently using to connect my Drobo. And though I haven't yet purchased a DAC, I wondered if I got a Firewire DAC, would it be better to daisy-chain the Firewire (Mac>Drobo>DAC or Mac>DAC>Drobo), or should I use Firewire for the DAC and switch to USB for the Drobo thus keeping them separate. Is this dilemma similar to yours? I look forward to the group's feedback.

 

[bmckenney]

Any of you computer audiophiles have some feedback?

 

[cfmsp]

Not as far as I know.

 

Since the DAC and the Firewire storage device will NOT be communicating directly as peers, I see no advantage. All the information would need to flow through the music player, and therefore the CPU.

 

Some might argue that it's safer to have them on separate interfaces, and thereby separate buses.

 

Clay

 

[BobH]

There will not be an advantage to having things daisy chained but there may well be a disadvantage. Two bits of hardware cannot communicate in the same direction down the same piece of wire at the same time. When this happens inside your computer, one item has to wait. Whether or not this wait becomes critical and unacceptable is down to the jobs being done.

 

I have two usb drives connected to a hub. I can stream from one and be saving a rip to the other at the same time provided I don't try and stream hi-res files. As soon as I try and do that, streaming 24/96 files, I get drop-outs. So for me, over usb at least, I could probably get away with the drive and a dac connected to the same hub but I may experience problems. The answer is to not create the situation where problems can occur. By separating the two functions you remove the possibility of the problem.

 

S0, to sum up, if it works then there's no problem, if it doesn't work then there is a problem!