Vince,

Well, to a certain extent it's apples to oranges....the TM-D is a mixer, the 428/224 are controllers. That said, there's definitely plenty of overlap in their feature sets, and your question's a valid one.

The TM-D does pretty well as a controller for Cubase.....faders, transports, auxes, etc. If you're used to working with it, no reason to change. Particularly with the PCI-822, it's a great way to get 10 channels of I/O (TDIF plus two S/PDIF); at that point the US-x2x's audio capabilities are pretty much extraneous.

The 428/224 are great, for example, with laptop-based setups...USB means not having to futz with a PCI card. In your case the 428's audio features are practically irrelevant. You'd only be using the 428 as a controller, and it does have some features there that the TM-D lacks. For example the shuttle wheel....I use it all the time, esp. for a quick jog backward to re-hear a few measures after moving a part. Also a few things like record arming, dedicated banking buttons, etc.

In the end it comes down to what you're accustomed to working with...you've likely been using the mixer as a control surface for a while now, and it's pretty intuitive for you. Unless there are features (like the ones I mentioned) on the 428's control surface that you feel are essential, you probably don't need a 428 since you're used to using the keyboard or mouse for those.

Hope this helps.
DK

Thanx Daniel, (Formerlyknownas)

It's good to get sound advice from you again.
Your right. I have no use for it. I have plenty of shortcuts and I must have all the audio channels. Maybe the DM-24 is my next step. I'm sure that can do more than I can dream of.

Well, if you go for the DM make sure the controller features are implemented the way you need them. I worked with Jace early on to get it to control VST 5.1, and there were a few anomalies with the transport section. I'm pretty sure it's been fixed by now, but make sure it does what you need it to do.