I currently own a MOTU 896, and record in Nuendo on an XP Home
desknote (1Gb RAM, 3 GHz P4, full-size components inside, tweaked for
audio perfomance as per tweakxp.com). I want to add more XLR
capability while staying portable, and like the fact that the Firepod
has the inputs on the front. What I read in product overviews for the
Firepod regarding compatibility with Nuendo and PCs contradicts what I
read here (thread "Firewired interfaces in serial")...will I have
driver/compatibility problems by mixing manufacturers, and will they
talk to each other over firewire? I don't want to lose the 896 unless
I will get that much better monitoring performance from 2 Firepods
than the 896 has now (been lucky with low latency).

Any thoughts/ideas? Thanks.