[ilovesocks]

The M-Audio Firewire Audiophile is an external sound device that runs off (gee!) Firewire. It has a built-in headphone amp for the 1/4" headphone jack in front, a stereo RCA input, two stereo RCA outputs, one MIDI in and MIDI out, one S/PDIF coaxial in and out, and two Firewire jacks (the second one is for linking multiple Firewire devices in a row). If it is used with a 6-pin Firewire jack, it does not require the included AC adapter. The coaxial is nice for someone who wants to go DAC -> amp.

The driver CD that came with the Audiophile when I bought it six months ago had outdated drivers, so I downloaded the current ones (in the form of a 5.54-mb .exe file) from M-Audio's website. It is much easier to install the drivers from the .exe file than the CD; all you have to do is run the file (it says to do this before plugging it in at all, but I just plug it in and leave it off). It will install software and then tell you to shut down your computer and plug it in. I simply reboot and press the power button (a fairly solid spring-loaded one) while Windows is loading. New hardware will be detected; set it to automatically install drivers and it'll find the .exe file again by itself do its thing. This happens twice, and you're done! Now I just leave the power button on; the Audiophile shuts down when your computer shuts down and comes on when the computer boots up (if you're not using the AC adapter). I've never had any software compatibility problems running Windows XP Pro w/ SP2.

The control panel shows up as a red circle in the taskbar and is versatile and very easy to use. The Level Controller (right-hand, larger knob) can be assigned control pretty much any combination of levels (as long as they're under the same bus: software return, input, output, aux). The headphone volume knob (left-hand, smaller) can have two presets (A and B) for which the source-toggling button (the other metallic spring-loaded button) can switch between with a push. I have the Level Controller control the volume for my speakers on outputs 1/2, and simply use the headphone volume control for headphone volume!

The Audiophile is obviously quite handsome, and the nicely-colored lights are bright. The build quality is good, although the gold RCA and coaxial jacks on mine had bits of rust right out of the box. I didn't really mind though, since I use it exclusively for headphone/speaker listening. I picked the Firewire model over the USB model simply because it was better looking (metal instead of plastic) and I could get it for only $5 more than the USB model from the eBay retailer I got it from (I paid $135 - way below any other seller's price, not to mention the $350 MSRP!). My one quirk with it is the fact that the control knobs do not turn smoothly; they have bumped levels. I don't know how to describe it; hopefully you know what I mean. So sometimes when I want to turn it a notch in one direction, it detects it as a notch in the other direction, and sometimes I'll have to turn it two notches in order to get any change in volume. I could fix this by going line-out to my Go-Vibe, but I'm simply too vain.

Sonically, the Audiophile sounds great IMO - more bass than my Zen Micro - Go-Vibe combo. I play 320 kbps mp3's in foobar using ASIO, no DSP's at all. I don't have anything to compare it to, but cranking the volume all the way up doesn't produce noise, and the amp easily powered a pair of K240M's when they passed briefly through my hands. I keep the software return nearly all the way up; getting the right volume from the amp requires about 1/8 of the maximum.

All I can really say about the Firewire Audiophile is that it looks nice, has a decent interface, and has a pretty strong headphone amp (dunno about quality but it sounds good to me!). The only downside I can think of is the notched level knobs - I was really hoping for a smooth knob with a good amount of resistance. I plan to hopefully get a CIAudio VHP-1 someday ..
_________________________________________
PROS:
Affordable
Looks good
Reliable (no compatibility problems/malfunctions)
Bus or AC adapter-powered
Coaxial in/out

CONS:
Notched volume/level knobs

 

[ScubaSteve87]

so is the analog line out on this amped then?? I was probably going to get it to use with a gilmore lite, but wouldn't an amped lin out affect the sound quality?

 

[ilovesocks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScubaSteve87 so is the analog line out on this amped then?? I was probably going to get it to use with a gilmore lite, but wouldn't an amped lin out affect the sound quality?

No, the line-out is not amped .. I'm confused - did I say that?

 

[ScubaSteve87]

sry my bad, i thought you might have, i thin k i just read it too fast

 

[ilovesocks]

Heh no problem. If anyone else wants to know more about the Audiophile, just ask and I'll be glad to post 'em and do any comparisons I can.

 

[rhythmdevils]

i had the firewire solo for a while. i hated it. and it hated me. i have all my itunes music on an external Lacie hard drive. between every song it made a clicking noise and sometimes when i first played a track it made a bunch of digital noise instead of the first few seconds of music. and then my hard drive wouldnt mount with the m-audio plugged in! so i switched hard drives and all my music cut out all the time!

not looking for answers cause i already returned it. gonna get the Fast Track Pro USB when that comes out

does yours have any trouble like this?

 

[ilovesocks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhythmdevils does yours have any trouble like this?

No .. sometimes there are a few very very, soft clicks (duration about a half-second) when starting a song (I assume it's ASIO synchronizing or something?), but it stops clicking before it actually begins playing the song. I've heard of people having to fiddle around with buffers and such, but I haven't had to.

 

[imported_Matt_Carter]

I have a question,

I see it has a SPDIF input, so can you just plug it into the wall and use it as a headphone amp?

 

[ilovesocks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matt_Carter I have a question, I see it has a SPDIF input, so can you just plug it into the wall and use it as a headphone amp?

Ooh that's a good question. I'm not sure about that. I'll have to try it (though I don't have any S/PDIF sources) when I get the chance!

 

[esp1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ilovesocks If anyone else wants to know more about the Audiophile, just ask and I'll be glad to post 'em and do any comparisons I can.

Thanks! I got registered because of this thread! I want to use my iBook G3 800 as source to a cayin 170 stereo preamp, so I'm looking for a unamplified firewire to RCA interface.

Do you know if it is possible to disable the volume knob for the RCA output, to sort of making it a line-out only (and avoid the internal preamp)?

 

[ken36]

Isn't it at this point, USB acknowledged as being superior to firewire?

 

[ScubaSteve87]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ken36 Isn't it at this point, USB acknowledged as being superior to firewire?

I'm not sure of this, but I think firewire is better. USB is just used more because it is more avalibile than firewire. Firewire does have higher bandwidth than USB, but I really don't think it makes a difference for stereo playback. Maybe only in recordings, multiple inputs, etc.

 

[ilovesocks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by esp1 Do you know if it is possible to disable the volume knob for the RCA output, to sort of making it a line-out only (and avoid the internal preamp)?

There is no dedicated volume knob for the RCA - the right-hand knob can be assigned to anything you want, including nothing at all. I'm not sure if you can completely bypass the thing (there's no loop-out, per se), but you can pick a volume level and leave it there for all eternity.

 

[EdipisReks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ken36 Isn't it at this point, USB acknowledged as being superior to firewire?

in what regard?

 

[Tim D]

Depends on implementation, but absolutely everything else being equal, firewire has much better bandwidth than usb 1.1 compliant audio devices (which many still are). Thus you can have higher bitdepth/freq and duplex operation.

Also people typically have other usb devices on the bus. Spec/RMAA wise however my USB audiophile has just as good loopback results if not slightly better (although limited in the max bit/freq for loopback). In the end you end up comparing possibly two different products, so likewise you can't say all optical DAC's are inferior to coaxial and vice versa as its too big a generalization.

Finally another factor is comparing 2nd or 3rd generation USB audio devices to what are typically 1st generation fireware devices.