[Darryl Ramm]

Yes, that is a good price and reason to get a C|24.

You want HD for surround mixing which is great.

But you don't need a DigiLink interface...

But here is the problem you face. The arguably best interfaces now (expansion, ability to daisy chain and low latency) are Thunderbolt, which your Mac Pro Cheesegrater does not have, and cannot be added. And the current trashcan is so brain dead and cripped and in the process of being replaced by Apple, hopefully with something more useful and expandable. Unless you have very large VI needs, if it was me I'd be working on a current high-endMacBook Pro... with one or two Apogee Ensembles (or a lower cost ADAT preamp added to the first Apogee). I'd seriously look at factoring in a Mac Book Pro into the options.

A Digilink interface is still an option, I would look around for a used HD Native card and a used 192 IO Analog or used HD IO 16x16. The HD IO are now replaced by the MTRX, so I'd not be paying anything like new prices for those now. But that leaves you with not great preamps in the c|24z...

The Symphony II is very nice, and you could use a Thunderbolt interface to that with a single 16 x 16 card... if you had a thunderbolt compatible Mac. But you still need outboard preamps (can you tell I am not excited about the C|24 preamps). But daisy chaining two Thunderbolt Ensembles should get you places at lower cost, with much better preamps, and let you start and grow when you really need to add more IO. the Symphony has the advantage if you want to go more than 32 x 32 IO in future you can connect them up via DigiLink to do that.