Hi!
 
I've been taking notice to my vocal tracks sounding duller lately and there has been a grittier, dirtier sound around them, almost like distortion or clipping in parts of them, especially on higher passages. I bought an Avantone CV-12 mic a few months ago but hear no change between that and the Peavey dynamic I've been using.  My (new) room is not the best for acoustic recording.  It's very small (5' x12') with drywall and non-shag carpet.  I'm sending in an evaluation sheet to Auralex and am looking into sound reinforcement but I'm skeptical that room acoustics is my only problem.
 
My interface for the past 5 years has been a Line 6 Pod Studio UX2 and it has served me well but I'm looking for a cleaner sound like the kind I hear in various home studio demos on YouTube.  I think this might be my problem.  Last night I tried a test with it, recording a vocal with very low input and I still hear the "clipping like" sound surrounding the voice.   It's not distorting according to the visual wave, but it's still there. I want it cleaner or I'm giving up the whole hobby.  I've also tried every type of EQ setting, pre set and other in Sonar and it's still there.  I tried the DeHarsh preset on the LQ64 equalizer and that tames it a bit but not enough. I also doubt it's the PC, which is a Lenovo Core i5 4460 running Win 8 64 bit.  I hear this dirty vocal sound even when it's the only track I'm running.
 
As a last straw, I ordered a Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 interface yesterday.  I'll be getting it this coming Wednesday.  Will this new interface, along with some sound reinforcement solve my problems?  Is Focusrite a better rated interface than the Pod Studio?
Thanks for your thoughts.
 
Here is a link to an audio test.  Note the poor quality of the vocal:
https://johnbowen.bandcamp.com/track/eq-test
 
John B.