Using an HD Native Thunderbolt w/ the new Macs??

[JFreak]

Hats aplenty.

I give you this. There may just as well be badly coded thunderbolt driver than it is possible to write a good USB driver. Darryl has proven at least RME does it very well. Generally speaking, though, USB being the way of least effort USUALLY is subpar compared to almost any random thunderbolt interface.

[Sardi]

Originally Posted by chaos audio

As soon as you need more than 32 I/O, HD Native is very relevant.

You can run up to 64 I/O with any suitable Core Audio or ASIO interface with Pro Tools Studio or Ultimate.


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[Eric Lambert]

I think either format can be entirely adequate for most tasks. When we extend into large formats with a lot of I/O, yes, the formats begin to show discrepancies, but for the average configuration we'd be hard pressed to sense a difference. I'm referring to USB vs TB.

For core audio vs. digilink there's a different set of factors differentiating them. I'm finding core audio to be more flexible overall, but using the HDN box and ProTools' Hardware/IO Setup just works well with my brain. And... core audio doesn't allow us to use Avid HDs, so there's that tiny detail.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Sardi

You can run up to 64 I/O with any suitable Core Audio or ASIO interface with Pro Tools Studio or Ultimate.

Actually it's better with Ultimate/Flex as you can now run 256x256 IO on Core Audio and ASIO.

--

Again (to others not Sardi or Eric) folks need to stop repeating old out of date and out of touch claims here like they are gospel. The key past justifications for buying into Digilink and HD native no longer apply. If it's working for you today great,... and these systems can be fantastic...but read the writing on the wall. DigiLink is being abandoned by new users and by Avid (outside of HDX, and lets guess what will happen for future HDX/DSP systems, no DigiLink on Carbon for a start). And sure sounds like Avid has a feature coming to make the adoption of ASIO/CoreAudio for existing DigiLink users even easier...

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Hats aplenty.

I give you this. There may just as well be badly coded thunderbolt driver than it is possible to write a good USB driver. Darryl has proven at least RME does it very well. Generally speaking, though, USB being the way of least effort USUALLY is subpar compared to almost any random thunderbolt interface.

I suspect there maybe some truth in this if you specify a bit more fully, that is Thunderbolt drivers derived from vendors PCIe drivers will tend to be very good since those higher-end vendors have already put lots of good engineering into PCIe based interfaces where they pay attention to latency and just overall goodness. Where it's a new driver or the driver is really doing more USB over Thunderbolt who knows how good or bad it might be.

RME can show they can make great USB or Thunderbolt drivers (they get to leverage their great PCIe drivers for Thunderbolt.. but their USB driver performance is identical for all effective purposes).

There are other vendors who also clearly have driver work done well, MOTU is one vendor I've been impressed with with driver quality (don't own their gear, have friends who do). Yes I also know MOTU has had software issues at times. Notable they provide USB and Thunderbolt connections on some interfaces and IIRC were getting similar latencies to Thunderbolt, but details matter, and I don't have all those details handy.

The USB market might be harmed at the lowest end by cheap crappy vendors shoving chip vendors low quality example driver code into product. Or contracting out driver development, if you see any sign of this run the other way.

I suspect any of the mainstream quality vendors we talk about here frequently have fine support for their USB and Thunderbolt devices that allow scaling into what was previously HD Native territory for Pro Tools users... remember all those other DAW users have been pushing on them for years.

What would be most useful is anybody with CoreAudio or ASIO interfaces that are having problems to just speak up on DUC and warn others off.

[Sardi]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Actually it's better with Ultimate/Flex as you can now run 256x256 IO on Core Audio and ASIO.

Correct. Sorry, I should have been more clear.


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[chaos audio]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Actually it's better with Ultimate/Flex as you can now run 256x256 IO on Core Audio and ASIO.

Ok, sorry I must have missed that. Is there an Avid service document where Core Audio with 256 I/O is described?

[JFreak]

avid.com, pro tools, compare -- says it right there.

[Hud]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Actually it's better with Ultimate/Flex as you can now run 256x256 IO on Core Audio and ASIO.
--
And sure sounds like Avid has a feature coming to make the adoption of ASIO/CoreAudio for existing DigiLink users even easier...

What feature is coming?
Thanks
H

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Hud

What feature is coming?
Thanks
H

Aux I/O on Mac. And it's here now in 2022.9.