Rocinante
Well-known member
Whoops great stuff and thank you for your suffering for the rest of us. I am planning to someday move over to the MOTU avb thunderbolt system and have gone through the pains of integrating a MOTU pcie-424 card with a more modern desktop, that could also support thunderbolt. They just don't have pcie-16 slots anymore. I ended up getting my hands on an "Avid certified" HPZ800 server that has been a dream to work with, albeit it probably can't do thunderbolt. That said with 12 cores and capable of using 192 gigs of ram (I have 48 in it currently) I see no reason yet to change anything. It also uses 2 solid state drives plus 2 more hard drives for storage and via an HD192 and an an Apogee AD16X and DA16x can record and playback 24 tracks I/O @24/96 with plug ins on several without a hiccup.
I'd be weary to push it to 36 tracks though.
When MOTU's pcie-424 came out it was a nightmare for Windows users for years. People dropped $2,500 on systems that wouldnt work as the drivers were very picky about which motherboard the pcie-424 was in. After reading endless complaints that went on for months I bit the bullet and went with the Digidesign (soon to be Avid) 192 ADDA. A few years later and lucky for me I was able to sell my Avid HD cards before they dropped so drastically in value, picked up a 2408mklll and pcie-424 to use as a bridge and haven't looked back.
That said the specs and capabilities of the MOTU thunderbolt line are hard to ignore. I'll probably bite the bullet and now I know; get the Z390.
I'd be weary to push it to 36 tracks though.
When MOTU's pcie-424 came out it was a nightmare for Windows users for years. People dropped $2,500 on systems that wouldnt work as the drivers were very picky about which motherboard the pcie-424 was in. After reading endless complaints that went on for months I bit the bullet and went with the Digidesign (soon to be Avid) 192 ADDA. A few years later and lucky for me I was able to sell my Avid HD cards before they dropped so drastically in value, picked up a 2408mklll and pcie-424 to use as a bridge and haven't looked back.
That said the specs and capabilities of the MOTU thunderbolt line are hard to ignore. I'll probably bite the bullet and now I know; get the Z390.