Re: OT Best Quality Sound Card - Least Amount of Mone

[Andreas Willers <a.willers@arcor.de>]

Rick,

after using an RME card for a long time with good results I moved to  
a cheap Presonus box for my Mac Mini a couple of years ago. For my  
latest solo projects I re-evaluated my recording gear and sadly found  
that Apogee simply blew away the Presonus and even RME and Motu. In  
the end I found a used MiniMe with the USB output for half the street  
price for a new one so I didn't feel so bad after all.

Of course recording fingerpicked solo acoustic guitar is quite a task  
and sonic differences are diminishing a little bit when you are  
working on louder, densely layered, thicker sounding music. Still I  
was shocked at how noisy the Presonus was, how dull and muffled the  
Motu sounded and that even the famed Fireface 400 despite it's geat  
routing capabilities paled soundwise in direct comparison to the  
Apogee. And side by side comparison is the way to go here.

Supposedly there are no big differences in the A/D conversion chips  
any more these days so the difference must lie in the analog path to  
the converters. That makes sense in a way since e.g. discrete analog  
mic pres generally do sound superior to IC-based designs. I have a  
couple of old Telefunken V676's here that do sound nicer than the TLA  
Ivory channel strips I had and also the bulidt-in mic pre's of the  
Apogee. And then there are those old tube Telefunkens they used to  
use at Abbey Road studios....

Anyway, I'm curious to hear what you guys have found.