Well, I did a little googling the past couple of days, because (in addition to the clicks & pops) the Firepod started changing bitrates in Sonar (sounds like a record slowing down) and dropping out completely during playback. Sounds like the Firepod's WDM drivers may be a bit flaky, so I switched over to use the ASIO drivers (no big deal, since Sonar supports both). It definitely reduced the number of dropouts/playback anomalies. Based on the sound, I put in an order for a second Firepod (MF had an open-box one for 30% off), so I could see what the performance is like with dual Firepods chained together.
In a word... ****ty.
When I rigged up the second unit yesterday, performance completely tanked... dropouts, pops, crackles, distortion everywhere. I can't keep the units in sync to save my soul... seems like one of them drops its connection every minute or so. I've tried both drivers (WDM & ASIO), I've tried both of my firewire interfaces, I've tried hooking the Firepods up in reverse order.
Presonus support, being very helpful, I must say, has given me a pretty massive list of tips to work through (everything from simple Windows XP performance tuning to suggesting I not use Sonar anymore to reformatting my hard drive), so I'm starting with the simple stuff, and if it doesn't help, I'll be sending them back. I've got far more invested in Sonar (over the years) than I do in Firepods so my first inclination is to find other cards that perform well under Sonar (I mean, the M-Audios weren't killer sounding, but they rarely dropped out, distorted, etc. in a couple years of heavy use). Or maybe it's a limitation of how firewire is implemented in XP... maybe I'm just not getting all the bandwith I deserve, and need to go back to a PCI-based solution.
So we'll see... if I do some of the performance tuning and don't get anywhere, I'll probably send the Firepods back and look into a Hammerfall card and a couple of mic preamps w/ ADAT interfaces like the Presonus Digimax LT or Focusrite Octopre LE, maybe a Behringer ADA8000 just to get me off the ground. While not quite as simple/elegant as a solution as the Firepods, it'd still be more convenient & toneful than the old ART/M-Audio setup.
--B