Orion32 HD on native MacOS using USB3 is reliable, no issues. On Windows or Hackintosh, it's a different story, it keeps loosing the connection with the Mixer software, sound goes trough with no issues, but the mixer becomes unusable after a few hours of inactivity, only way to resolve is to completely Kill the Antelope Services, cycle OFF / ON the Card, then relaunch the Mixer software.
Bare in mind, the Mixer software is controlled via USB. So regardless if you use HDX connection, MADI or USB3 on Windows, the mixer software Will crap out on you.. constantly. (When in Windows or running it on Hackintosh)
Tested on various motherboards..HP Xeon based motherboards (HP entreprise server), gaming motherboard (gigabyte ga-z170x ultra), as well as asus, toshiba and lenovo laptops..all of which suffered from the same issue with the usb3 and the mixer software running Hackintosh. The Orion32 HD.does not.play nice on Windoze nor Hackintosh.
Running a packet sniffer, I was able to determine the root cause of the USB connection issues with the Mixer. In a nutshell, the Mixer software talks with the Hardware via a USP network connection, and the network sockets on the Hardware ends up freezing somehow, port never gets freed, and instead of allocating a different port dynamically, the IP Stack on the Hardware just stops responding. This is why the only way to fix the issue is to Cycle the Card OFF and ON, the issue is also with the Mixer software itself.. it also freezes.. Cycling the Hardware alone (without killing the process on the computer) does not fix the issue.. you need to do both. Oddly, on MacOS.. no issues, which is uber strange.
Other than that, clocking is supreme, dynamic range is on point, and most of the FPGA's are supreme (didn't compared with UAD DSP's, however, I can tell you that the Antelope FPGA's are good enough for me.)
You are limited in the amount of instances of certain FPGA's which can run simultaneously, when you reach the limit, the FPGA Plugin either dissapears from the list or becomes greyed out (I don't remember which of the two.. i'm too lazy to test).
Good news, in 2019, Antelope's been pushing more updates for the Orion32 HD than any other years since it's production, yet, They have never been able to fix the Windows Issues which is a shame.
Mixer software is really nice, routing options galore. My only complain is that it doesn't have any AES IO's, while the Goliath HD does have AES, it Lacks Analog IO's which is why for me, the Orion 32 HD is king. I hear that the Gen 3 is dope aswell, but, FPGA's aren't included, you need to purchase them separately as opposed to the O.G Orion 32 HD which comes stock with all kinds of FPGA Plugins.
There you have it. If you are on Native MacOS (Like running MacOS on a legit apple desktop or laptop), Go for it. You made a reference to Core Audio in your post, so I guess you are running MacOS.. you shouldn't have any issues (I've had no issues whatsoever running it on my Macbook Air)
If you are running windows or MacOS on a Hackintosh.. the Mixer bugs will **** you off the the fullest at one point or another. On the Audio Side, My friend did some tests comparing the USB3 Audio vs MADI, and he did notice a considerable Improvement running Audio trough MADI.. so make yourself a favor, if you get it, or the Gen3, consider a Madi PCI Card to run audio trough it, as long as you get a quality MADI Card with it, you will be in a better position to really hear how good the Orion32 HD (or Gen3) sounds.
