Problems recording with two Octa-Captures hooked together in Sonar X1c

Just got my new Octa-Capture today to go along with the one I already have. I followed instructions and got the two Octa-Captures strapped together via the S/PDIF port so that one is clock master and one is slaved at 96K/24. The slave has the master output to the amp and when just playing instruments through ports on the OC's all sounds just fine. My problem is if I want to record/monitor using Sonar X1c. Pure digital garbage indicative of a serious clocking issue between Octa-Capture(s) and Sonar.

My PC specs are below. Each Octa-Capture is hooked directly to a USB 2 port on my PC. I have the playback timing set for ports 1,2 on the slaved Octa-Capture and recording timing set to the slaved Octa-Capture main outs. I have drivers set to ASIO which is the only choice you have with these devices. All ports on both Octa-Captures are visible as selectable devices in Sonar and I have them selected.

Now the curious thing is that Sonar is complaining about me missing my MOTU driver for my 828 MKII that I replaced with the second Octa-Capture. Prior to replacing the MOTU, it had served as the timing master. The unit is turned off and I have verified that the drivers are not even loaded nor is the device a selection I could even make in the audio devices preferences. It almost seems as though Sonar desperately wants to use the non-existent MOTU for timing and it is not there so I get pure digital garbage. On the other hand, maybe I am just missing something really obvious and this should be easy.

For the record, when I had the MOTU in place of the new Octa-Capture set as timing master and the first Octa-Capture slaved to the 96K clock out I had no problem recording in X1c. I changed because I wanted to be able to access all ports separately and there is no way to use the Octa-Capture and the MOTU at the same time under ASIO. I had been using ASIO with the MOTU as the selected device with the output from the Octa-Capture going to the S/PDIF ports of the MOTU. It at least worked even though it was not optimal.

Anyone that has this configuration working PLEASE help me. I have been walking around with that blank stare on my face you get when even when you walk away from a problem you can't stop thinking about it. My fiance' is getting pretty tired of Mr Blank Face ;-)

It turns out that I had the Octa-Captures plugged into the two USB 3.0 ports of my PC. This should not have mattered and it never did for using the ASIO control panel. I could see the devices perfectly and configure them without issue. USB 3.0 is spec'ed to be backward compatible with USB 2.0 devices. Unfortunately, when I used the Octa-Captures on these ports all hell broke loose as I have documented.

Moving the devices to native USB 2.0 ports on my PC solved all the problems and they are working fantastically well together now. Audio is totally pristine. Quieter than the MOTU ever was. The reason why my MOTU and the Octa-Capture worked together previously was that all the audio streaming was being done through the MOTU firewire connection. The Octa-Capture in my old setup was passing data through the S/PDIF port directly through to the MOTU with the MOTU serving as clock master and the only visible ASIO device in Sonar. No issues at all there.

I am a happy camper now and am going to post this hint up for others so that anyone using the Octa-Capture doesn't have the same issues.