HD Native Stability & Latency

[NeilParfitt]

Hi all,

Currently I'm running an HD2 rig with 2 x 192Digitals + Sync as my slave/layback machine and everything coming from Logic is piped into the 192's via ADAT from MOTU interfaces and Protools is setup to print stems, handle routing, 5.1 and 2.0 fold mixes. I'm basically using it as a Digital console. This is all on a single machine and it works fantastic.

At this point, I'm looking to switch my Logic and satellite sampler computers to MADI to not only get more I/O, but also streamline the cable spaghetti and amount of external rack gear - and most importantly lose the blue 192's while I can still sell them.


So right now the setup is basically:


Sampler computers - RME-RAYDATS
to
Main Logic DAW (2 x MOTU 2408mk3 in ADAT mode)
to
Protools HD2 (2 x 192 Digitals)
to
Dangerous Monitoring (5.1 and stereo DACs - mostly AES inputs)



I'm thinking of doing this:

Sampler computers (RME-RAYDATS)
to
RME ADI-648 (ADAT to MADI conversion/Matrix)
to
SSL MADI extreme128 PCie (MAIN DAW)
to
SSL XLogic DeltaLink with Avid Protools HD Native PCIe
to
RME ADI-6432 (MADI to AES conversion)
to
Dangerous DAC-ST and DAC-SR (4 x st stem monitors + 4 x 5.1 stem mix monitors all AES input)

I still need the ADAT inputs as my Sampler computers, some Pre's and such still use ADAT... and it just works.

So my 2 questions of the day are:

1) Will the added latency from the HD Native card vs HD2 be a problem for real-time monitoring - or is it minuscule?

2) Is Avid's HD-Native card as stable as the HD2 cards?

Everything I do is TV/Film - so I'm in 48/24 land.

Cheers,

Neil

PS: I'm not worried about the 'native' aspect of PT vs my HD2 as my Mac Pro is a 12core 3.45Ghz w 48GB RAM.