In general we recommend Texas Instruments for firewire chipsets on daws. In the case of the saffire line, focusrite recommends texas instruments or Via. There are 2 specific chipsets they recommend for texas instruments (doesn't mean others won't work), and I think 1 from Via. There's a pdf on their site with these details, just search on www.focusrite.com for firewire compatibility. This is always a hit or miss type of thing, some people have had great luck with texas instruments chipsets, either built in to the motherboard or as an add-on card, and yet others have had to switch to a via card to get good results. One thing I might add, depending on how much low latency you are looking to get, saffires (like most firewire devices) use the dice II chipset system, which does not work extremely well under heavy load and low latency (64/128 buffers etc). Your milage may vary (also depends on your system and configuration). The saffire pro40 is my first firewire/dice II device, so I'm testing to see what it's like. I have a feeling though that nothing will be better than a PCI/PCIE interface, and RME is king of the hil, (and the valley for that matter), when it comes to that... This is not to steer you away from these fine units which are killer deals considering the preAmps and the price/features, but just want to give you the full report... HTH, D!J!X! -----Original Message----- From: ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Chris Smart Sent: Monday, October 03, 2011 11:18 PM To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ddots-l] Re: appropriate sound interface Hi There. I'm not sure if Dancing Dots sell the Saffire Firewire interfaces. Anyway, they use a firewire port, not USB. It's a different connector to USB. If your computer does not have a Firewire port, you can buy a card with a couple firewire ports on it pretty cheaply. Most seem to recommend cards with a Texas Instrument (TI) chip on it. Isn't that right guys? I haven't had to worry about firewire ports in a few years, so I'm not sure if that is still the best advice about which card to get. Chris PLEASE READ THIS FOOTER AT LEAST ONCE! To leave the list, click on the immediately following link: ddots-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe If this link doesn't work then send a message to: ddots-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx and in the Subject line type unsubscribe For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the immediately following link: ddots-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq or send a message, to ddots-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx and in the Subject line type faq PLEASE READ THIS FOOTER AT LEAST ONCE! To leave the list, click on the immediately following link: ddots-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe If this link doesn't work then send a message to: ddots-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx and in the Subject line type unsubscribe For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the immediately following link: ddots-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq or send a message, to ddots-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx and in the Subject line type faq