I haven't used a h/w device to truncate 24- to 16-bit, but I will say that when I truncated using s/w I found the results unpleasant, fatiguing, and more noticable than I expected. I don't know why h/w truncation would be any different from s/w truncation, so I don't plan on going the truncation route as a backup device while I'm breaking in whatever 24-bit recorder I pick up.