Thanks for the info, I am increasingly keeping an eye on these dedicated DSP solutions. The one thing I wonder about is -- do we really need dedicated DSPs in the future with CPUs getting all these additional cores? IMO, the limitation right now is software not making effective use of parallelism. I've got a dual-GPU card (which supports CUDA), and folks are already starting to come out with things like plugins that use the extra GPU (can't remember the name of it but there is a convolution reverb that uses CUDA). I'd imagine the GPUs in my video card are way more powerful than both the Ti2 DSPs put together, and as long as that GPU isn't already processing graphics, why can't it take on the workload of oscilators or fx? Just thinking out loud here, maybe a conversation for another thread.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have all the gear you've mentioned. Give me 2 Viruses and a Nord Lead, and I'm done -- just lock me in a room... until I want to produce a well-timed track then I'm hosed.
As I was typing this, I came to a realization why my software integration expectations are so high. The first hardware synth I ever owned was a Kawai K5 additive synth -- I see new synths touting "additive" synthesis, supposedly the only form of synthesis that truly has the (almost unapproachable) capability of truly synthesizing any sound (without cheating like sampling). But most of these are not a true additive synth the way the K5 was. It was a bitch to program, but I had "Dr. T's Editor" for the Atari ST computer which enabled me to draw waveforms with the mouse etc (for those too young to remember, the Atari ST was a computer with built in MIDI ports --- it WAS the audio interface..
) So fast forward from 1987 to 2010, and the synth hardware to software interface has not really changed much. In fact, on my OS/DAW combination, the Virus Control plug-in to the hardware was worse - full of latency and bad performance, and I'm very technical and relatively good at troubleshooting anything in that realm. Was it the immaturity of Access' 64bit drivers perhaps? Maybe, but that should have been corrected by the time that 64bit Windows 7 was selling like hotcakes and becoming defacto. I'd like to think I can buy a Mac and all my problems will go away, but I see Logic folks complaining sometimes too.
So, I'd just like to see it all work. Or at least well-tested enough that they can clearly tell me the computer hardware environment required to make it all work.
Until then, I may be a purely software guy. Also, as much as I love the hardware and the musical inspiration that comes with it, sometimes I hear great tracks produced with Virus + VST only to find out the part that really caught my ears was the VST.. Side by side, once crunched down to MP3, I'm not sure anyone can know the difference.