I like my Lynx Aurora, you should be able to get one within your budget.

John

Burl.  UA 2192 for stereo in/out, apogee (which was pretty standard for big studio Protools), JFC. 

For something less analog and big-transformer colored there is Prism, Mytek, lavry.

For something more reasonably priced there is Lynx, RME, TC Konnekt (what I use).

Most of the cheaper interfaces don't have that much difference in sound in the grand scale of things sound.  They are all pretty good and certainly acceptable.  When you look at just the raw stats new cheaper interfaces outperform yesterday's high-end converters.

Even if you have big money to spend (some of those high end converters above cost $1000 per channel or more) you probably aren't going to get your money's worth of difference unless you have a nice room and nice speakers and nice everything else along w/ good ears that are trained.  Nothing wrong w/ spending money but doing it wisely is the trick.  If I had it to do over again I'd probably go lynx - even if it meant buying fewer channels.  Professionals use it all the time so you are getting a solid, pro converter you'll never outgrow yet you aren't selling your first born to purchase.  RME is solid soundwise and has as good drivers as anyone at any price.  I love my TC Konnekt 48 - DA is great, AD is good, onboard DSP and routing as thorough as RME (but more confusing) and great connectivity.  The drivers aren't as good, which brings me to the last point.

If using sonar Roland is a good choice.  The main thing you want w/ an interface is to be invisible and give no problems.  Pick your price point, figure out a couple of options and then get the one that fits you best.  It is unlikely that it won't work well, but if it doesn't move on to choice B since you could be spending precious music time (and temperment) on tech support - not making music.

@

CoteRotie


I like my Lynx Aurora, you should be able to get one within your budget.

John

+1  Lynx is pro, big boy toys. I love my Hilo.

I concur on the Lynx converters. I run them here. That's the most bang for the buck you will find around $2500.

Another vote for Lynx here. The drivers are excellent, and the support is the best I've found, and rarely needed. I've been using Lynx for a few years now, and can't see myself switching to anything else.

Last December I dumped my RME HDSPe interface because the output channels started failing. I replaced it with a UAD Apollo quad and totally noticed a massive improvement in sound quality. It's above a lot of people's budgets, but it's a fine piece of kit. 

RME UCX is worth a look. I have had one for a week or so and whilst expensive, it is rock solid with a round trip of 4.6ms latency in X2. mixing, routng, sound quality all top notch. Very impressed.

Don't be too concerned about what the "big name studios" use, that's a whole different league. If money is no object though, and you want to join the big boys, go for a Pro Tools HD system. That's 10K at a bare minimum.
 
Someone mentioned the UA Apollo. I have an Apollo Quad, and yes, that is a stellar sounding unit, if you don't mind shelling out $2500. Be forewarned though, those things, along with the UAD-2 DSP cards, cause a deadly disease named "UADPluginitus", for which there is no known cure, other than an empty bank account.
 
All jokes aside though, I concurr with all of the other suggestions given in this thread. Let me just add that I really like my Focusrite Saffire Pro 24DSP. It has excellent mic pre's and converters, flexable routing, solid drivers, dual headphone jacks, ADAT in, S/PDIF I/O, and an internal DSP chip that provides real-time reverb monitoring, as well monitoring/printing with compression and EQ on the inputs, should you need to do that. At a street price of $400, that's a pretty good value IMHO.
Apollo is my main interface for use with Sonar and Pro Tools and the Saffire linked up to it via S/PDIF.
JTW
 
 
 
 

I have to admit, the UA Apollo looks pretty cool and seems to be a decent price considering that it has the UAD-2 card built in. and i guess since ive already got a form of pluginitus i might as well add UA to the addiction. Does the UA stuff ever limit the amount of plugins u can use? I'd hate to spend that much money on an interface or just buy the card and be limited.
Now im gonna research the Lynx stuff.

Dude Ivey
Does the UA stuff ever limit the amount of plugins u can use? I'd hate to spend that much money on an interface or just buy the card and be limited. 

UA stuff is very cool but you  are limited in the number of plugs.  Say card 1 has X amount of DSP, each plugin uses Y amount of DSP.  Once your number of Y's add up to your number of X, no more plugins.  You can add more UAD-2 cards to increase this limit.  I'm running 4-UAD1 cards (a single UAD-2 should get you a bit more processing power than that) and have been able to mix 50+ tracks with effects.


Best,
guitardood