96 and 192 Question's

[A Chapman]

Wow, this thread has answered a lot of questions I've had floating around in my head for a while.

I'm studio manager for a university in Buckinghamshire, UK. We've got two HD / Control|24 setups already, and I've been given the go-ahead to price up another HD room to replace an analogue studio that's starting to look like a bit of a white elephant.

Digi's HD C|24 bundle looks like excellent value for money, but I'm slightly bemused by the fact that it comes with a 96. You'll have 16 mic pres on the C|24, but will only have 8 analogue inputs available to HD via the 96. In our two other rooms we use Focusrite Octopres to offer additional inputs via ADAT (in Studio 1 the vocal booth lines come via the Octopre, and I'm using a 1622 connected to the legacy port of the 96 for extra inputs from the live room - in Studio 2 we have the slightly more awkward setup of mic inputs 1-8 being on the Control|24, 9-16 on the Octopre).

I'm starting to wonder what the ideal setup would be for our new room. Is the bundle such good VFM that we'd be best adding something on to the supplied 96 (a 96i, perhaps?), or would we be better off putting the new setup together from scratch, perhaps using some Apogee boxes or a 192 with an extra analogue inputs card?

On a slight tangent, I'm also wondering if Argosy have a C|24 solution in the works yet?

Any thoughs on this would be gratefully received.

Thanks!

EDIT : Ah, just answered my own question re. the Argosy. Looking sweet