ahh, very good about the 24/96 and 32gb SDHC cards. I missed that in my first reading.
This thing looks perfect. Any idea about a price point or release date? And what are the dimensions? 30% smaller than the PMD660 is still a fairly substantial object.
price and release date are anyone's guess. and while you are correct about 30% smaller than the PMD-660 won't make this tiny (obviously, it'll be larger than the R-09's, MT's, PMD-620s, etc, etc), but this has XLR inputs with phantom. While no published specs are out, from the pictures, it looks like it'll be smaller than the Fostex FR-2LE, which will make this the smallest deck available with XLR inputs and phantom power. also, I think the S/PDIF input is great. other than the MT and MTII, this will be the smallest 24/96 deck with a digital input (we all know the original MT wasn't the most reliable. I think the MTII has improved reliability, but I wasn't ready to give M-Audio another chance).
personally, this deck looks to have everything that I would be looking for. and would definitely consider selling my Tascam HD-P2 and replace it with this deck (the only hesitation is that the HD-P2 has word clock and is easily sync'ed to other decks for 4 channel recording. I've done this a few times with a friend who also has an HD-P2).