So far the noise issue has been noted by Korg and most likely will be fixed with a firmware update.
However, I have noticed that the noise is not present most of the time, only when you first start up the console.

Yesterday, I was able to map the inputs and outputs of the console so that my DAW app (Tracktion 2) could process the inputs from my hardware and then send it back to the console for output to main PA. This allowed me to use any VST sound processing plugin in realtime in order to process the raw audio from hardware before presentation to PA.
For someone on a budget this means that powerful sound sculpturing is available in software form rather than expensive hardware!! (so goodbye hardware comp and EQ and my Live rig just got a whole lot lighter!).

The firewire interface was able to be run at 48k sample rate with a set 6ms latency with no problems after running all day. I will try and trim down the latency further.

My Live rig now will consist of the EMX, ESX, Zero 8 and laptop. I will incorporate Ableton 6 after my next gig and start using it to add further sonic possibilities...