David W. Talmage <talmage@madison.onespeeddave.com> wrote:

> I'm considering the M-Audio Transit, ...

The M-Audio Transit needs firmware downloaded before it will appear as
an audio device.  Without the firmware, it just shows up like this:

    ugen0 at uhub0 port 1
    ugen0: Unknown Unknown, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 2

I believe it uses USB's "Device Firmware Upgrade" (DFU) to download the
firmware, although M-Audio's tech support weren't too clear about that
when I contacted them.  What they said was:

| If you can download our latest Transit driver for Windows and install
| it on a Windows machine, it will place a copy of the binary firmware
| file you need in the Documents and Settings>User>Local Settings>Temp
| folder. You should be able to take this file and use it within Linux
| or NetBSD. The file you want will be called Ma006100.BIN

I'm considering trying to figure out the USB DFU stuff and see if I can
make it work, but I don't even know yet if it can be done via ugen or if
a new kernel driver will be required.  (Suggestions welcome, similarly
if someone is interested in doing this if they had access to the
hardware, feel free to contact me.)

In the meantime I'm using a PCI CMI8738 based card, but its optical
digital output quality is disappointing.

> ... the Xitel Pro HiFi-Link, and the Edirol UA-1D.

My recollection from when I was searching was that the Xitel always
converts via 48Khz for output and won't pass 44.1Khz data straight
through, making it unsuitable for my use.

The Edirol only supports 48Khz for playback according to the
specifications.  It will *record* 44.1Khz, but not play it back:

    http://www.edirol.com/products/info/ua1d.html

The Transit sure looks like a nice product.  It just doesn't work
yet, and more Round Tuits need to be applied. :-)

Regards,

Giles