Which interfaces did you use? I’m really getting confident about the reliability of my Edirol.
Never experienced this solid performance with any of my firewire interfaces.
Macs come with firewire 2 which is quite fast (800mbps) and although I’m not aware of many sound cards supporting that yet, it can be great for external hard drives. The 6-pin (powered) firewire jack is really handy, you can use some firewire devices without having to plug them into external power. (4-pin PC firewire interfaces have no power). That being said I’m a PC user, I wish I could afford a mac though. Even though I’d probably just install bootcamp.
Well, my new laptop is gonna be here on monday… it’s got firewire… and e-sata. I’m getting the fujitsu I linked to above 
I’m using an Edirol UA-25. When I get my new desktop PC this summer I will be happily putting in my old M-Audio Audiophile 
Just want to throw this in allthough I know it’s probably not relevant anymore. But maybe it helps someone else decide about getting a Mac Book Pro or not .
I for one, got myself a MB Pro, and got a little bit upset when I found out about the following:
Apparently the new Mac Books Pro are shipped with a really cheap Agere Firewire chipset which is reported to lead to all sorts of problems with quite a number of well known Firewire audio interfaces, be it RME, Presonus, Motu (they even mention it here [1]). Only the Apogee Duet claims to work perfectly with the new Mac Book Pro FW chipset.
If you plan to do get an FWIF make sure your computers FW uses a Texas Instrument chipset.
[1] http://www.motu.com/techsupport/technotes/…nd-pcmcia-cards
Macs have been known to not use TI for quite a few years now. Afraid but it comes as no surprise that you are having problems with a firewire audio interface on a new MacBook Pro. In fact there is apparently not a single laptop in production using the firewire chipset (from discussion reported by a KVR user/systems integrator and a representative from Texas Instruments) which is part of the reason why that, even though I have what I believe to be the last laptop to use TI, I am trying my hardest to avoid getting a firewire audio interface as I’m suer I will upgrade at some point in the future.
So are you liking your new laptop, byte smasher? Though the new Macbooks have firewire it seems…
I’m happy my laptop has the TI firewire chipset!
What laptop?
Good move! I’m lovin Fujitsu.
I’ve never owned one until I took a gamble on it about 1 month ago. Looks like your model is veery close to what i’ve got.
http://laptoppimp.com/interesting-laptops/…k-a6220-review/
When you compare the features and hardware side by side its truly a no brainer. With UWB, USB2, and Firewire, you can use any type of interface on the market.
DWORD: is your “stereo mix” working? I can’t seem to get it to show up in Vista 
Sorry I didn’t notice your response sooner (I forgot to tweak my e-mail settings).
I’m not at home but i’m going to check on that later tonight…
Do you mean stereo mix on the soundcard utility?
Aye… when I go into my windows volume controls, under “record” … there should be an input device called “stereo mix” or “what you hear” or something to that effect
Apparently this is a documented issue that may be related to Sigmatel? and/or Realtek sound drivers. For some its proven to be completely disabled. And yet others speculating DRM/OEM/MS strategery to explain the lack of transparency in activating the feature. Any number of things could be the culprit but luckily there is a workaround.
Here’s some of the info I found.
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-12546_102-0.html?threadID=263991
http://www.stereo-mix.com/stereo-mix-issue…dows-vista.html
http://www.stereo-mix.com/stereo-mix-issue…o-tutorial.html
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/01/15/ho…rding-in-vista/
Just another vista screwup to add to the list. 
Even when I click “Show disabled devices” or “Show disconnected devices”, I don’t get anything. I found those fixes early on in the game.
And this is a realtek chipset.
Yeah, Firewire is a must in my opinion.
First, I have a Digi002R for my audio interface, and the thing has been nothing but reliable. I tracked my band’s entire album (drums recording on 5 channels at once), and it never skipped, popped, or hiccuped (this was also on a desktop that I built 3 years ago).
Meanwhile, everything I’ve had USB-wise (an Edirol PCR-a30, my old MIDI keyboard which is seeing the end of its lifespan, and my KORE 1 controller) has been unreliable for workhorse recording. Obviously, these aren’t built for the same task, but just the difference in quality is striking.
Finally, Firewire also opens up some of the really fun goodies, like my Liquid Mix 16 (which can be found at bargain prices these days. I saw a standard Liquid Mix going for $400 new somewhere, I’ll have to find that link…).
My computer is placed 10m away from my monitor ,keyboard mouse and Firewire Interface (Focusrite Saffire).
I use two Firewire Repeater Cables to achieve a good quality (400 mb) over this long distance.
Works like a charme on XP Professional SP3. I have super-low latencies for Firewire bus and audio interface (2,5-5ms)
I also had no problems with firewire when using hackintosh on my standard pc. Used Logic and firewire and had no probs.
I had a lot of probs with USB ! Also with my digital video camera. No probs with firewire.
BUT:
Actually I’m experiencing problems with RF noise emitted by my PC through the firewire connection. The noise is transported to my active nearfields and that sucks.
To avoid this I had to cut the implict firewire power supply by connecting a firewire 6:6 to a firewire 6:4 and connect the firewire 6:4 to a firewire 4:6, plus: connect an additional power supply to my soundcard.
This functions, but it’s not nice.
Right now I think about using an ART DI Box with ground lift switch etc…
But I would go for firewire … it’s cool
Hope this helps 
A resolution!
After a painfully slow download from Realtek, I’ve finally got stereo mix. I’ll give a full description for all posterity and such.
Here’s what I did…
I tried the ‘easy’ fix which was to first open the Playback/Recording devices control panel, select the recording tab, right click in the devices list and ensure that both ‘Show Disabled’ and ‘Show Disconnected’ options are checked.
-For some this seemed to work as there seems to be the possibility that the functionality was there but just hidden by Vista.
This of course didn’t work 
Next, I pulled up device manager to check my audio drivers. Listed under ‘Realtek High Definition Audio’ I selected properties to check the version… What a shocker over a year old. A quick check at Realtek [http://www.realtek.com.tw/DOWNLOADS/] under the section listed ‘High Definition Audio Codecs (Software)’ shows the latest version as ‘R2.27’. Hot off the press with 6-22-09 post date. For Vista/Win7 select the ‘Vista, Windows7 Driver (32/64 bits) Driver only (ZIP file)’. After the painfully slow download I described earlier I jumped back to the driver property window.
-Nows a good time for a quick restore point JIK…
I hit update driver and selected the option to browse to the driver manually, pointed it to the ‘Vista64’ directory from the extracted zip and let er rip. After some thumb twiddling and drooling etc. reboot and wait. Once you get back to Vista pull up the recording devices window again… shazaam stereo mix. Last steps, right click stereo mix and select enable and finally and most importantly right click it again and choose ‘Set as default device’. Make sure the lovely little green check mark appears on the stereo mix icon.
Yeah so all that long blah just to say update your drivers. From reading around, other people have seemed to get similar results by installing the XP drivers in Vista… Try at your own risk. I don’t know if it will work.
If nothing else works and you don’t mind throwing money at this issue there’s of course some software that can resolve this.
Virtual Audio Cable ($30) http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.html
FreeCorder Toolbar (Free) http://applian.com/sound-recorder/
And some others if you look hard enough. 
BTW If you own certain Dell and Sony Vaio laptops your out of luck. Large and greedy forces are conspiring against you. Send them hatemail or mail them a brick or something.
http://officeofstrategicinfluence.com/bulkmailer/
One thing I forgot to add…
If mailing bricks doesn’t work and/or your willing to sacrifice quality (feedback, degredation etc.) you can get a short 1/8 in stereo cable (male to male) plus a splitter if you don’t have enough line-in/out options. Good luck!
I already tried that site for drivers… but I don’t have a standard realtek chipset it turns out. The installer wouldn’t detect my devices.
This site, however, seems to have updated ones… I’ll let you know how they work out: http://www.realtek.cz/realtek-download.php…69&system=5
Did you try the installer or the zip? Do you have vista 64 bit?
My driver version is 6.00.0001.5874 (English). I’m curious what is yours?