MacOS Ventura & USB and Hybrid audio interfaces & Firewire/Thunderbolt-adapter support

[ooons]

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[ooons]

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[ooons]

That looks very promising indeed! You first though.

Updated. Didnt do a thorough test, but everything worked exactly like before.

This using firewire->thunderbolt->thunderbolt3 -adapter.

Using a M1 mac.

[mikehalloran]

Give that Apple doesn't give a flying F about firewire

They don't have to because it doesn't matter.

FireWire was a protocol of the PPC Consortium. That Apple supported it for a few years after the switch to Intel was a good thing. In 2011, the issue became moot. Thunderbolt, an Intel protocol, passes enough of the FW protocols that simple adapters were all that anyone needed with one exception, bus power. FW ports on 2011–2012 Macs except for the MP 5.1 were built-in FW–TB adapters and not true FW ports—being TB1, they only pass 7.7V bus power and not the 24V FW spec.

Those same Apple FW-TB adapters still work with Intel and Apple Silicon through TB2–TB3 adapters except that those TB adapters do not pass bus power at all. Thunderbolt is still an Intel licensed and certified protocol. I expect that Apple will stop licencing it someday but not yet. Till then, there's no reason for FW devices not to work.

All MOTU FireWire is FW400, no matter which connector. Hybrid units support Fast USB 2 which has a lower RTL than FW.

[patthedog]

Those same Apple FW-TB adapters still work with Intel and Apple Silicon through TB2–TB3 adapters except that those TB adapters do not pass bus power at all.

I use my MOTU Ultralite exclusively with bus-power. Going from my 2019 MacBook Pro through the Apple TB3-TB2 adapter, then TB2-Firewire and finally a FW800-400 cable.

Works just as well as the day I bought it for my Mac Pro 2008.

Although when I think about the investment in adapters compared to the very reasonable price of an M4, I realise how guilty I am of sunk cost fallacy!

[stubbsonic]

Thunderbolt, an Intel protocol, passes enough of the FW protocols that simple adapters were all that anyone needed with one exception, bus power. FW ports on 2011–2012 Macs except for the MP 5.1 were built-in FW–TB adapters and not true FW ports—being TB1, they only pass 7.7V bus power and not the 24V FW spec.

Those same Apple FW-TB adapters still work with Intel and Apple Silicon through TB2–TB3 adapters except that those TB adapters do not pass bus power at all. Thunderbolt is still an Intel licensed and certified protocol. I expect that Apple will stop licencing it someday but not yet. Till then, there's no reason for FW devices not to work.

All MOTU FireWire is FW400, no matter which connector. Hybrid units support Fast USB 2 which has a lower RTL than FW.

I presume my FF800 interface doesn't need any bus power as it has its own power supply. The adapters work, both for MIDI & Audio, but MIDI doesn't survive sleep on the new MBP. Something crashes the TotalMix software, but that might be on RME and not Apple.

Not being able to sleep my M1 MBP is kind of a pain, but not the end of the world. However, not being able to quickly shut down (because of a crashed TotalMix app) is more of a pain.

[mikehalloran]

After verifying that MIDI on my 828mkII FW worked on my iMac Pro and M1 over Monterey, I stopped paying attention to that. When I need to use any of my 5 pin MIDI devices, I connect to my MTP AV over USB.

I use my MOTU Ultralite exclusively with bus-power. Going from my 2019 MacBook Pro through the Apple TB3-TB2 adapter, then TB2-Firewire and finally a FW800-400 cable.

Wow, that's great. Thanks for letting us know. How does that affect battery life?

TB2, then TB3 and TB4 did step up bus power by quite a bit each time. MOTU's bulletins on this were written when TB1 was current and Apple's gospel was that TB2–3 adapter doesn't pass bus power—this could also be because Apple doesn't want to be in the position of having to support that.

My iPad rig runs completely off bus power when I'm rehearsing with the band. For gigs, the Lightning to USB 3 CCK has a power supply plugged in—just in case…

[patthedog]

I'm not sure how bus-power affects battery life, since the MacBook is on the AC adapter all day. I imagine it would not be great because the time I did try the MOTU PSU (in attempt to cure a ground loop) the wall wart became quite hot which usually means there's significant power consumption.

I should mention that I'm not using any phantom powered devices which might get different results.

[ooons]

The way I understood Firewire bus-power through Thunderbolt-adapters, is that Thunderbolt passes some power through, but not as much as Firewire did.

I can start my Ultralite MK3 Hybrid without a PSU using the Firewire/Thunderbolt -adapters, but if you start turning on phantom power etc, the Ultralite shuts off cause it is not receiving enough power.

[patthedog]

That makes sense. One of my phantom power toggles is actually stuck in the off position anyway!

I did the Ventura update today and all appears to be fine here too. I experienced some worrying audio dropouts at first, but that seems to have resolved now that the system has settled down after reindexing, etc.