New MacBook Pro (late 2008) and RME FireFace 400.

Does anyone have access to a new MacBook Pro *AND* a FireFace 400? And if so, can they let us know if they play nicely together?

Apparently MacBooks that used the Texas Instruments Firewire chipset in the past worked brilliantly, but those that used the cheaper Augere Firewire chipsets suffered, and I quote:

"Problems with the Agere firewire chipsets used in macbooks and macbook pros from the end of last year till early this year (time frame from anecdotal evidence) included anything from audio drop outs to no activity and wildly cycling LEDs. Getting a reliable firewire chipset is very important."

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Also:

"The only way to tell what chipset a mac has is to hold 'cmd' + 's' on startup to enter single user mode. You will then see a list of the components including the firewire chipset. I have been in contact with apple in depth about this and they cannot tell by serial number/model number."

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There currently appears to be *NOTHING* on the internet as to whether the new Firewire Chipsets in the new Macbook play nicely with RME's FireFace or not. I really need someone to just test them, or if you've got the laptop, I could grab a FireFace and come round and test it on your machine, and we can finally post some answers online.

I totally want the new MBP, but if it ain't gonna work as a portable music rig, then it's useless to me.

And I'm really dismayed that the RME forums are quiet on this topic [plenty of questions, no answers yet at least], the MacRumor forums are quiet on this topic, the Apple forums are quiet on this topic....hasn't anyone out there tested this yet?

Timur said:

It would be nice to have someone sharing experience with that combination, but as long as no one owns it we need to rely on past experiences.

As far as I remember only the FW400 ports on the old LSI chipset MBPs lead to problems while the FW800 ports were fine. Since the new MBP only comes with FW800 it should be fine.

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That's cool. As I posted on the RME forums, my local Apple Reseller has agreed to let me test a FireFace on the new MacBook Pros in-store. I just need to wait for a decent FireFace to come up on ebay, ;-), and then I'm all set to go try it out.