Just to review:
It may be possible that this unit can do seemless splits recording 24/96 but it is definately not guaranteed at this time, correct?
I bought the MTII for this very purpose - to go digital in at 24/96 and have seemless splits. I have been eagerly watching this thread given that this unit uses SD with Coaxial Digital Input - 24/96. Another consideration is battery life, I don't want to have to use an external battery sled for fear of not being able to record the whole show as I do with the MTII.
I'm pretty sure that it is not seamless splits. I've had a couple more back and forth emails with the Marantz tech people. After telling him that I was probably going to stick with my Tascam HD-P2 for now (because I absolutely need seamless splits). he sent me a couple of mp3 clips (which I haven't had the chance to listen to yet). Basically, he made a recording with the S/PDIF input. and after short inervals, used the manual "autotrack" to close the file and create a new one. He then put all these files together to form the first click. It's not seamless. though some of the flie-splits are "inaudible", while others you can hear a small "tick. Of course, "this all depends on the shape of the wave form at the split". He then send me a second clip, in which he used a pencil editing tool to get rid of the small ticks. In his opinion, now the file splits were all inaudible, so it didn't matter that the original split isn't quite seamless.
what this says to me is that it's almost seamless, but not quite. you probably won't notice it, and if you do, it can be masked pretty easily. Personally, I think I'm going to stick with the Tascam and true seamless splits.
of course, by comparison, the Fostex FR-2LE doesn't even automatically start a new file. with that deck, you hit 4GB and it stops. and plenty of people are happy with the Fostex. I think with 4GB as the file size limit (which it is for the PMD-661), its a reasonable deck if you are happy at 24/48 (or 24/44.1). then you've got 4 hours per file and don't have to worry about file splits anyway. but if you wan tto record at 24/96, you'll hit the 4gig mark after 2 hours, which I often go beyond in a single set.