I've looked into using 2 Tascam FW series units in this way, as far as my research took me, the answer is basically, NO...at least not being able to run 2 of these units directly into your DAW computers via Firewire, nor have control capabilities with more than one unit at a time. You need multi-client drivers to be able to accomplish this (on a PC at least), there aren't multi-client drivers for these units. If anyone can correct me on this, I'd be very happy to hear otherwise! It's a real shame, Tascam didn't have this foresight!
But this certainly does not mean you can't use one as a simple sub-mixer, running into the other....either by way of analog audio, or by s/pdif digital audio between the two. I doubt you're going to get the extra channels from the 2nd unit to go directly into your DAW, nor be able to have both Tascams running in any control mode role.
If you had 2 FW-1884's, you could run them together via ADAT, getting 8 channels of digital audio from one, to the other. All you have with the FW-1082's is the s/pdif or multiple analog ins/outs...if you can spare them!
What you also can do with two Tascams as another option, is run two separate computers, each with their own FW-1082. If you're a Steinberg user, you can run any version of Nuendo or Cubase on each computer (current, legacy, cheap or free Cubase versions), and link the two computers, by way of the Tascams, connecting them together via their s/pdif digital audio I/O's, and using Steinbergs own VST System Link. The two computers will play in perfect synchronization. With 2 DAW's, you can run more of everything, audio or midi tracks, etc.
You can also set up routing via the s/pdif + System Link to monitor both computers via one of the Tascam FW-1082's (unless you'd rather route the analog audio for monitoring both PC's).
