PTHD1 vs PTLE + Complete Production Toolkit

Are you deciding if you should buy a PT LE system with complete production toolkit or if to buy a PT HD1 system?

After upgrading my DV Toolkit2 to Complete Production toolkit I have had the chance to work on both systems side by side with the exact same sessions. I have to say that I have been blown away by how easily the sessions can be exchanged between the two systems.

My HD rig is a HD1 running a 96io on a Mac Pro 2 x 2.8 Quad Core (4gig Ram), with my LE system running a 003R from an iMac Intel 2.16Ghz Core 2 duo (2gig Ram).

For my testing I ran two different sessions (1 with pics + 1 with no pics) across both systems for a comparison.

Test 1:
A session using 96 voices of 5.1 tracks with no video.

Result-
PT HD system did play it back well, although had a few "pci" bus errors. I also had to use 3 DSP chips to fix this problem.

PTLE played back with no errors and only with system usage meters only showing 2% usage across all parameters.


Test 2:
A session with 81 voices using mono tracks with 5.1 outputs and running video

Result-
PTHD - All worked well
PTLE- All worked well

Conclusion
Despite being deficient in a few of the features of PTHD, I have to say that the Complete Production Toolkit has blow me away. I do use trim automation and VCA's, and unfortunately these do not come across to an LE session- however knowing this allows the user to factor this into their initial session setups. At a fraction of the price, and with performance as good as (if not better) than PTHD, I would have to say that from now on I will be using an LE system for all of my work. If I was going to be doing large 5.1 mix sessions (greater than 96voice) than I would use a HD2 or HD3, but for the work that I do on a HD1 system, the LE system is a perfect cheaper alternative.