I've had a Creative X-Fi Elite Pro soundcard for around 10 years now. It's served me pretty well over a number of Sonar incarnations, however, I've been plagued by blue screens time and time again. I've had a couple of different computers, which I've put together and am now running an i7 quad core, 16gs of ram, raid Raptor hard driver. It's a pretty grunty system and along with Win7 64bit, it's been my most reliable and powerful system for Sonar - now X3.
 
Back to the blue screens, after submitting crash dumps, getting help from tech support etc, the cause remains elusive, but most likely related to X-fi.
 
So after some research, budget considerations, flexibility, low latency need etc, I'm looking at either a octa or BabyFace. Both seem pretty good. I mostly work with soft synths, Maschine Mk2, A-800 Pro midi keyboard and do a bit of vocal recording via a Joe Meek Twin Q, digitally configured in the Elite.
 
Are there any owners who might give me some feedback on these cards? I've seen some other similar posts, but I'm also hoping for someone to tell me if either card is going to provide better sound recording quality over the Elite?
 
Appreciate any thoughts here.
 
 

I have been using the Babyface for some time now and i must say i am very happy.
RME is always early out with drivers and always have rock solid drivers.
 
The only problem i have with the Babyface is that the headphone output is not the
most powerfull, so if you are using some headphones that require some umf! to get
loud, it will only give you reasonable volume. I'm using the AKG Q701, and tho it does
give me somewhat enough volume when i turn it up to max, i would have liked just a bit more :)
 
I do not however have any experience in recording live stuff, never used the line-in/gitar/mic stuff.
 

Sorry to say but Creative.cards may be acceptable for basic home use, but not for quality recording.and mixing. No doubt youve had great service from your card but it is really night and day compared to what you are looking at now.
Once you get to hear the sound out of a Babyface or the Octa youll be amazed.

The choice comes down to.the number inputs and outputs you want simultaneously. I would take the Babyface as i know from experience how good RMEs hardware and drivers are.

Those are two fine interfaces with lots of users here. You should hear from some of the Roland users here today as well. 

Hi Alan,
 
You have a PM.

go with RME for their drivers.........

I have been using an RME Fireface 800 for about 4 years now and can attest to the quality of their A/D, D/A converters.  I have never had any trouble with drivers and have updated them on several occasions.  RME has always been early to provide drivers for the operating systems they support.  In terms of capturing external audio RME is very good.

Either the Octa-Capture or the RME is a great choice. I have had great success with my OC and would recommend it highly. From what I've read, RME comes highly recommended as well.

+1 for octa but you won't go wrong with either, both fantastic units.

RME over Roland for sound quality and driver stability no question. Octacapture only if you need that amount of simultaneous analog I/O (which would require an ADAT converter on the Babyface).