Logic Pro From PCIe to the Future

H

HKC

Logician
Hi there
Does anybody have an idea about where to go if you need the features of a RME Raydat on the newer machines that don't have PCIe.
I am happy with everything as it is and I am not really interested in new converters but using a Mid 2010 MacPro I will be very interested in the MacPros that will hopefully be released some time next year.
I know that a lot can happen within a year from now but I haven't really followed the market since 2010 and have no idea about what's hot and what's not so I better get started.
I need at least 24 I/Os, preferably with ADAT connections and a latency that can match Raydat with multichannel recording. I run Raydat in 64 samples and I can record 24 tracks in 44.1/24 simultaneously with that setting. I can probably use the 32 setting as well but I haven't tried it out much lately because the risk of getting clicks into the recording really isn't worth it. Nobody ever complains about the latency anyway.

PS please don't reply if you don't have experience with these kinds of interfaces. I know there a plenty of solutions for smaller setups but this is not really a small setup and the last few % matters a lot to me.
 
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For newer Macs the simplest answer might be to get a Thunderbolt to PCIe box and put your RayDAT into that. Somewhere between $200-$300 US. No, I don't have experience with a RayDAT.
 
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I wouldn't expect much, if any, extra latency. Essentially Apple has pushed the PCIe bus all the way out to the Thunderbolt ports. The full speed bus (.5m cable) at 40 gigabits/second supports 4 lanes of PCI Express version 3. I wouldn't expect you would get any worse performance from your RayDAT external box or internal.

A lot depends on the RayDAT itself.

Presonus Thunderbolt 2 interfaces have real-world round-trip latency of under 2 ms.
I get round-trip latency of 8.5 ms on my Macs over a 1 Gbit Ethernet connection running Dante Virtual Soundcard.

The latest MacBook Pro can handle 4 Thunderbolt 3 connections.
 
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Cool and thanks for the reply.
This looks like an obvious solution. The Raydat works perfectly and I would be sad to update to something that seems to be not quite as good.
It is very easy to spot that old fashioned multi tracking doesn't sell as many units as it did just a few years ago so there are not that many options if you wan't 24/24 I/O with external converters. Luckily that doesn't seem to be a problem because of the Thunderbolt to PCIe possibility.

All the best
Henrik
 
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