corners cut
Not to be redundant to my previous posts, but here's why I think the Alesis is cheaper - and I've done some research on the website
1. No expansion capabilities for I/O. the Tascam has at least 3 different cards for different I/O options. This thing is hard-coded to 1/4 analog input/outputs and the ADAT lightpipe (which, in my honest opinion, is kinda cool compared to the thick ELCO cable I use with analog recording) - so if you have Tascam cards on your digital O2V board, too bad. buy new I/O cards for the board, cause you ain't getting them for the HD recorder
2. Lots of R&D already done - this thing looks like it's going to just be ADAT hardware and code, but with Hard Disks instead of tapeheads. It'll be completely compatiable/syncable with your current ADAT's via ADAT Sync cable - I don't think they rebuilt the concept from the ground up like Tascam did, just copied the stuff from the Masterlink and ADAT into one unit
3. No 96Khz recording - The Mackie and Tascam offer 24 tracks at 48khz, or 12 tracks of 96 KHZ recording (at least with a future software update) - with the Alesis, you're stuck at 48/44.1 Khz - (so far - I haven't seen anything on the website offering it)
4. No graphical editing possibilities. You'll have some internal editing capabilities, but not the visual of the Mackie or the MX-View of the Tascam. (heh heh - maybe they'll come out with the ADAT-superPCR) - Not a big deal to some, but if you ever listen to Wilco's "Via Chicago" and hear the bridge, where they basically took a computer and cut the mother into many pieces and glued them back together (a la George Martin) - you'll understand how cool an option like this can be.
5. At this point, I've seen no mention of virtual tracks.
I'd say with all of that up there, the first three aren't really negatives in my book (more of an "ehhh" in my book -no 96khz recording needed yet) - EXCEPT the last two. I want to do visual cut and paste, and I want virtual tracks. I like the idea that I could have 40 tracks in my home studio and so forth with this one extra unit. But you know, I don't have any qualms about blowing the extra money on a better unit just to get it right.
I'm still tossing between the two, with Ametth's recommendation (having tested them both, apparently) weighing in favor of Tascam. My only hesitation with that is that it looks like with the Mackie unit, all I need is a monitor and keyboard, whereas Tascam wants a seperate box (apple or windows) for the MX-View software. Plus I have a mega-far off dream of getting the digital 8-bus, at which point it'd be easier to intergrate with Mackie.
Man, long topic of discussion....many variables...whew - maybe I should just go back into the studio the old fashioned way. Lord knows, when I started this disaster, I thought it would be cheaper. That's naive talk now.
..to me, and this is just my dumb opinion, those converters just dont sound right to me. I cant explain it, but they just aint right 
