With SONAR being Windows-based only, I'm not sure how much interest there is here re the following news item I received this morning:
 
http://www.zdnet.com/article/thunderbolt-3-how-usb-cooperation-could-lead-to-100-million-connected-computers-soon/
 
Apparently, Intel has come up with a Thunderbolt 3.0 (40 Gbps v 20 Gbps for 2.0 and 480 Mbps for USB 2.0) chip that uses the USB-C (USB 3.0) connector. They expect to see first use by the end of the year.
 
Why might that be important here?
 
How many of us have USB audio interfaces? Yeah, a LOT of us.
 
How many of us wish we had better (or, heck, any) performance from our audio i/f? Yeah, a LOT of us.
 
Would a chip-based 40 Gbps i/f between audio box and PC be, well, awesome? Would for me! So, this was very good news for me to wake up to this morning.
 
Have a great day!

Unless you are simultaneously recording a huge number of channels Thunderbolt v1 offers nothing over USB2 or Firewire400 in audio terms. My UFX can handle 16 mono channels feeding into the DAW over USB2 (PC) or Thunderbolt2 -> Firewire400 adaptor into Macbook Pro without any problems at all.

Thunderbolt will become more common, I think, but mostly as a way to attach multiple external devices to computers with limited or no internal expansion possibilities. Laptops, tablets, "all in one" PCs and iMacs and the current Mac Pro for example.

As things stand the biggest issue with Thunderbolt is the lack of devices (especially inexpensive devices) available, not the bandwidth of existing Thunderbird technology. It doesn't help that many devices, such as external drive enclosures, have only one TB port so can't be used to daisy-chain more devices. Which kind of defeats much of the point of Thunderbolt in the first place. Many current external "Thunderbolt" drives are actually a USB2 or 3 interface with a bolted-on TB port, so the theoretical gain of TB is lost because the drive electronics are only capable of USB performance.

Given time all this may change, USB wasn't the industry standard connection method when first launched as a competitor to serial, PS2 and parallel ports (remember them?), but over a few years everything changed. Whether TB offers enough to the average computer user/owner to see mass take-up by consumers remains to be seen.

It's about time for an update though. USB 2 has been standard for a long time now and we need to progress. I could see Thunderbolt using the USB-C connection being huge so long as Intel supports it and takes over total control from Apple so it's not so exclusive to Apple products. Up to this point, Apple has been pretty much in control of the software side of Thunderbolt which is why PC has had such rubbish support on it. I'm hoping that now changes.

With new hardware comes new drivers. With Intel making an inexpensive Thunderbolt v3 on-a-chip, there isn't a single thing Apple can do to "control" the environment. Also, Win10 is coming. I dumped my PreSonus AudioBox 44VSL due to driver issues (it's now connected to my Nexus 10 and Audio Evolution Mobile DAW, where it works great), replacing it with a Tascam US-16x08 which is still on driver v1.00. Yes, there are some issues, but it works great with SONAR.
 
My biggest hope, and the reason I posted this in the first place, is that TB3 ports start showing up on PCs relatively soon (by the time I need a new one) and that the drivers for them will be better behaved than the USB 2.0 mess right now.
 
If you have a higher i/o audio i/f working great under Windows, awesome. I wasted NINE months trying to get my former audio i/f's driver to work. My PC has 6 USB 2.0 and 4 USB 3.0 ports, but you think it's that simple in the Device Driver manager? Not. I NEVER got their driver to work with my iLok (another USB 2.0 driver), and that caused LOTS of anomalous behavior.
 
I want to get my audio i/f as far from that mess of USB hubs as possible.

Um... 5GB/sec (two full length quality movies) is going to quickly find its chokepoint elsewhere. Throw a couple FX on that data stream and those chokes become obvious quickly. Is like trying to render a full length movie; never seen that in any measure of "seconds."

I wouldn't expect Thunderbolt 3.0 to really change anything for 99.99% of end users.  
 
As was mentioned above, a typical audio interface has ~18 channels of I/O.
In this scenario, you're nowhere near saturating the USB2 bus.
Thus, connecting that audio interface to a bus with 20 or 40 times the bandwidth (in and of itself) won't buy any additional performance.  
 
If you were running 200 channels of I/O at 192k, that would be a different matter.
 
Liken the situation to the early days of SATA-III (prior to fast SSDs).
There were no SATA-III HDs that saturated the SATA-II bus.
It didn't matter if you connected the SATA-III HD to a SATA-II or SATA-III port (you'd achieve the same performance either way).
 
 

While a lot of people say USB2 will easily handle bandwidth requirements of most typical/smaller applications, since recently moving to an RME-UFX and using USB2 connection, I seem to have more snap, crackle and pop (not from my rice kripsies) and drop-out  issues, simply playing/mixing my recorded tracks than I ever had with my ($300) 10 year old M-audio Delta 1010LT PCI interface card, to the point where I may go back to using it, and thinking I've made a somewhat costly mistake.  I'm not sure what else to attribute this to other than the USB interface, assuming/hoping the RME-UFX isn't a total P.O.C., (aside from apparently the USB interface), perhaps I can still use the mic preamps, directly to outputs without using USB (anyone want a deal on an RME-UFX?). I'm going to now try using the Firewire interface for a while and see if I still have the same issues. Any advice or comments on similar experiences that may help would be appreciated?
 
Cheers  

JohnEgan,
 
I use an RME-UFX on USB2 with no troubles at all FWIW.

I use an RME without issue. The only time I have problems are when I need to raise the buffer due to plugins or IO related latency issues.
 
Raising the buffer always solves things for me.
 
If you have an RME, you should be aware that you also get DigiCheck with it. This is a useful tool for all sorts of things.
http://www.rme-audio.de/en/downloads/driver/digicheck.php
 

Several things:

• Many USB2 audio interfaces don't cope well when connected to a USB3 port (especially 3rd party USB3 controllers).  Prior to Z and X series motherboards (and derivatives), literally all USB3 ports were provided by 3rd party controllers (as USB3 had not yet been integrated into the chipset).  Make sure the UFX is connected to an Intel USB2 port.
• Make sure the UFX is not sharing a root-hub with another device (especially not another higher bandwidth device).
• Using a USB hub for low bandwidth peripherals (dongles, keyboard/mouse, etc) can help free up USB ports (and makes it easier to avoid another device sharing a root-hub with the UFX.

Have no doubt that the RME Fireface UFX is an excellent unit (assuming it's in proper working order).
You should not expect glitches/etc when connected to USB2.
With a well configured recent make machine... you should be able to run substantial loads glitch-free at 48-64 sample ASIO buffer size (44.1k).