MBox Pro and FireWire/Thunderbolt adapter

[fonzi]

Hi,

I recently purchased an iMac and am interested in setting up my MBox Pro to work with it. I had forgotten that the MBox Pro only supports FireWire (not USB) and my iMac only has USB and Thunderbolt connections. I noticed that Apple does sell a Thunderbolt to FireWire adapter (http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD...rewire-adapter), however some of the customer reviews are complaining that the adapter slows down the connection speed.

My question: has anyone successfully used this adapter with their MBox Pro? Has it worked out? Do you have any other recommendations for the best/most performant way to connect the MBox Pro to an iMac?

Thanks!

[Northwood]

I bought a Late 2012 iMac and MBox 3 Pro assuming the Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter would connect the two. The MBox came with what I will describe as an 'old style' not-mini Firewire cable and an Adapter labeled 'IEEE1394', which converted the male Firewire connector to a 'new-style' not-mini male Firewire connector, which fits into the Apple Thunderbolt to Firewire Adapter.

The MBox application, nor Pro Tools on OSX does not recognize the hardware as connected.

I have double checked the connections and tried both Firewire ports on the back of the MBox 3 Pro and tried both of the Thunderbolt ports on the back of the iMac.

I have tried booting with the wires connected and MBox on and with MBox off and turned on after boot and with wire disconnected until after boot.

Has anyone gotten this configuration to work?
If not, are there any suggestions other than replacing my iMac with one containing a native Firewire port or replacing the MBox 3 Pro with a audio interface that supports Thunderbolt or USB 3?

[emilano]

It works great for me!

[Bruce Paine]

Works for me as well with a mid-2011 iMac and Mbox 3 Pro. Did you install the latest Mbox Pro drivers?
www.avid.com/drivers

[djlessthan]

I'm also curious about this...anyone else have any luck?

[herman_hdz]

Sorry guys, I have a similar issue , and some people recommends me to buy this adapter, so based on your experience think that my OSX Mountain Lion can recognize my MBOX Pro3 connected through the adapter Thunderbolt to FireWire instead of my integrated FW port in my Imac 2009 with 10.8.2 and using the last drivers available for Mountain Lion Release: 1.1.3 (Oct 30, 2012)??

Thank you.

[Northwood]

Bruce,
are you using a Thunderbolt adapter to connect to the MBox 3 Pro?

I have the latest drivers from http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...ownload+driver
Driver 1.1.4 Oct 30, 2012

There is an MBox process (that contains an image of an MBox 3). The Update button takes me to the above driver page.

[tr0n]

realize this thread is fairly old...however anyone using any of the new iMacs, MacBook Pro (Retinas), etc with FireWire only devices from AVID.

The FireWire to Thunderbolt adapter works great..my one additional suggestion is to get a FireWire 400-to-FireWire800 Cable and not use the adapter, multiple adapters have spelled out bad in the past.

[Northwood]

Sorry I didn't update on this issue:

I bought a FireWire 400-to-FireWire800 Cable to use with the Apple Thunderbolt Adapter and reinstalled the MBox Pro 3 drivers and the MBox Pro app could recognize the hardware.

In PT > Setup > Playback Engine, I could set to MBox and get the analog and MIDI INs and OUTs available in PT.

Thanks all.

[pitchie]

Ever since buying my new iMac, it frequently (often daily) crashes when it comes out of sleep with the MBox 2 Pro connected, using the Thunderbolt to FW adaptor (obviously, since it's the only way to connect the two devices). When I'm up and running, things are fine! I have tried everything, including updating drivers and the Mac OS to 10.8.4... I'm using Pro Tools 9 but that doesn't really matter, as I don't have to be using Pro Tools to experience this crash. I'm going out of my mind here, having searched for an answer all this year!!