Thanks for your replies.

I would love to just use the H8000FW as an interface, but I think I need more analog I/O to hook up my couple of hardware comps, eqs, etc so maybe it won't work.

I've managed to read up some more about digital connections, and some of it is slowly sinking in (I'm not the fastest learner, my brain tends to shut down when reading technical info)

I think I'm going to start by trying the H8000 over Adat into a Fireface 800, if I don't like it, I'm going to sell the FF and try something else.

Cheers