In all honesty, I'll never need All the inputs on the d8b...I mainly wanted it for a control surface, but if I could use some of the inputs as my interface to the PC that would be even better...and while I would try to get one with as much as possible, it wouldn't be completely necessary to have them all hooked up to the pc as inputs. Even if I could do 8 to the pc that would be plenty...maybe could save some money on getting 8 channels into the pc as opposed to 24?
What I'd like to be able to do is this...setup a patchbay with all my in/outs from the d8b, then I can just hook to whatever input I want at anytime. But I'd like the d8b to be able to output that to the pc on the proper channel. For example, lets say I have electric guitar plugged into channel 11 on the d8b, if I only have one 8 channel digital out, can I assign track 11 to go out one of the 8 available channels and be recorded on channel 11 of my DAW? Or am I limited to one card channels one through eight, second card 9-16, and so on? I suppose if I have to I could drag the tracks to another channel in the DAW, and just use tracks 1-8 for bringing in signal whenever I need...
It does sound like the rme 9652 might be a reasonably priced option on the used market...