Since this is a USER conference......you need 1 snake to carry 8 mic preamps from the C24 to 8 line inputs of your 002R(assuming you wish to use the C24 preamps). You need a second snake to carry outputs from the 002R to the monitor inputs on the C24(assuming you want to control your playback levels from the C24). Of course, since you have IO on the 002R, you can actually use the C24 as the controller it is, with nothing but the ethernet connection. If you want to connect the second set of mic preamps from the C24(9 thru 16) you will need a snake for that, AND an 8 channel lightpipe converter. That can be as cheap as the Behringer ADA8000($200) or even an old ADAT recorder(I would skip the early black-faced and look for a later version with 20 bit converters).