HDN users, help me decide

[chrisdee]

I work a little different from most others.

I monitor in the hp amp directly from the preamp (send out) because i use many soft synths, often change sounds and therefor don't commit to audio. At 96k i can work comfortably with a buffer size of 512. It even works at 256. But with 40 to 50 tracks of softsynths and audio tracks with several plugins on every track i start go get into trouble at 128 samples. 64 just don't work in such a session for me.

To my ears the ad/da conversion is super clear/clean compared to what i came from (mbox 3 pro).

[propower]

Latency of HDN is much lowerthan Firewire or USB because the extra 2ms or more needed for just the bus protocol is not needed. HDN is a true PCIe type interface (either via the card or Thunderbiolt).

I have published all the HDN latencies with AVID I/O's many times.
http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=352396

HDN for just audio tracking with stock AVID, Softube and a few others carefully selected plugins (PT11 and Mavericks) can run at 96kHz 64 buffer all day (like AVID Channel strip on every channel). THat's where I run every day at 1.7ms latency - vs your old 64/44.1 over firewire which is in the 7ms range.

For max stability - 44.1/64 is the common place for HDN (4.8ms)

WRT lower latency at higher sample rates the simple answer is - A little. Latency has three major components: Conversion, Bus, and Buffer). For doubling the sample rate the conversion time does go roughly in half. With respect to Bus issues - Be it FW, USB or PCIe these are unchanged. WRT Buffer issues Double the sample rate = double the minimum buffer = no reduction in latency!. BUT - in AVIDs I/O's there is a huge change for 441 to 96k because of how they actually run the converter at 96kHz vs 44.1. At 44.1 the A/D D/A time is ~1.9ms at 96kHz it is 0.47ms !!! (instead of 1/2 the conversion time one gets 1/4!!)

[albee1952]

Thanks to all. I now feel like it may be a safe move