+1 for RME
There’s definitely a difference between low/mid and high end DAC’s. As is with lower bitrate MP3 compared to WAV. One definitely can hear the difference when A/B listening.
Thus said, the differences between various high end converters are very very little: See e.g. High End Converters – It really doesn’t matter – Audio Geek Zine
Interestingly the difference between low and high end DAC devices is not necessarily the DAC chip itself (it’s usually not that expensive): there exist even a number of high end DAC chips which are built into low budget gear. So what’s the difference ? Mainly the concept and components around the DAC chip: quality of power supply, digital clock / jitter handling, shielding, ground concept, overall quality/tolerance of electronic components, proper line drivers (affects analog signal quality/stability), better S/N ratio, better volume control concepts, better stereo ganging, Oversampling, and so on. There’s a reason why good DAC’s are pretty heavy devices, compared to e.g. an lightweight onboard DAC of a portable MP3 player.
Demo e.g. a Mytek / Lake People DAC, and compare it to a Laptop or low budget USB soundcard. Use decent monitors and you know/hear what I’m talking about.
But as I posted earlier: your monitors, room acoustics + listening position, microphones, preamps, etc. are usually much more important than the used AD/DA converter. Though I would prefer decent converts, if the rest of the signal chain is decent, too.
And if you want to save even more money you can buy e.g. a RME Hammerfall PCIe card. It’s more stable, than the USB/Firewire stuff and has super low latency. Ooops sorry, I missed that you are looking for an external card. Maybe a RME Babyface would be an option, too.
This.
My last three was in this order: M-audio delta 44, Echo indigo and now Focusrite Scarlett 2i4. I was thinking to get Komplete audio interface, but comparing all the comments I read about it vs scarlett comments made me chose the latter.
I’ll go back to an Echo product after the Scarlett.
Motu has a good reputation.
I recently upgraded to a RME Fireface UFX and I don’t think it’s possible for me to be happier. A little pricey but what a long-term investment this thing is. I can pretty much do ANYTHING with it. Before this, I was using an EMU 0404 USB that did the trick fairly well minus a relative flaky driver.
I’m running Renoise on Ubuntu now and just got Komplete audio6 installed using wine. Anyone know how to get it to show up under Renoise preferences?
Using an Audient iD-22. Awesome pres, even better converters. ADAT expandable. Super pleased with it.
I use the Audient ID 14
Steinberg UR44: many inputs, many outputs, midi support and works with windows 10.
I recently upgraded to a RME Fireface UFX and I don’t think it’s possible for me to be happier. A little pricey but what a long-term investment this thing is. I can pretty much do ANYTHING with it. Before this, I was using an EMU 0404 USB that did the trick fairly well minus a relative flaky driver.
I am in for a new interface , currently using edirola ua 25 .
Can’t decide between the fireface ucx and babyface pro 2.
I need portability with solid audio and the opportunity to record a mic wherever I go. The Focusrite Solo was light enough to velcro to the back of my laptop while still providing quick access to gains and the XLR input for a mic:
It’s been a solid performer. Renoise combined with the headphone calibration tool from SonarWorks let’s me compose and do at least rough mastering wherever I’m at. iZotope’s RX 5 added in the mix let’s me get surprisingly clean audio takes on a phantom-powered condenser mic on the already decent preamp (not as good as the ISA One, but decent enough for the price).
Flushing out the system are two 500GB SSDs allowing me to cart around an incredible amount of sample libraries and plugins while distributing load. A Sabrent USB 3.0 hub mounted on the back with the Solo provides a solid connection for both the Solo and any thumbdrives I need to quickly move data around with,and of course with Renoise I can implicitly compose without a keyboard.
I’ll have to upgrade at some point, but this setup has been an amazingly versatile solution for doing almost anything I can think of, and the Solo one of the best investments I’ve ever made.
I will second the Steinberg UR interfaces…the UR22 has been solid for several of my systems, and I’ve recommended it for others who picked it up as well.
The Presonus Firebox was awesome, once I had a TI-based Firewire card. They also have some of the best support I’ve ever needed to work with. Before I knew better, an onboard Firewire chip for an AMD motherboard fried that box…twice, the second time also taking one of my Behringer Truth 2031As with it. The second time, it was out of warranty by a month, but Presonus still replaced it…taking the clue, I also added the TI-chip 1394 card and never, ever had an issue with the box again…completely solid.
An M-Audio Fastrack C400 got me around for several years…the hardware was awesomely solid, the software…fair for several of the driver releases. However, both M-Audio and now Avid have left me high and dry on many occasions and I won’t go back. Need way more positive in my life, so…permanent virtual unfriend 
I second the Fireface UFX. It’s awesome and I don’t think I’ll be needing anything new for a while. I had a UR22, it was extremely good for its range.
Hm I find the Fireface UFX a tiny, tiny bit overpriced ? 
But if you have the money… 
Sometimes you can get an old Fireface in used condition for a quarter of that price…
Do you guys think that the DAC and ADC still matter these days? There was a nice summary of used DACs in common audio interfaces at recording.de plus a measurement of all those interfaces, but I cannot find it anymore… Surprisingly lot of vendors - including RME - use standard DAC chipsets. RME has maybe the best driver for sure, but for OSX, is that anyhow relevant?
What I can say from experience, most of my audio interfaces sounded very similar in brilliance, only M-Audios (here 1814) sound a bit more dull or lets say differently antialiased / reduced. The best brilliance I can get currently is the audio interface of the Korg M3, which I now use as a firewire audio interface.
Do you know any recent analysis of common audio interface DACs and quality?
m-audio usb 2 ch was here. then i switched it to a&h digital mixer. im more happy with a sound quality now. and it makes less damage to my monitors when i turn off the soundcard first.
fireface ucx is only 1100 euro ,also 32 midi channels
ufx is overkill for me
… However, both M-Audio and now Avid have left me high and dry on many occasions and I won’t go back. Need way more positive in my life, so…permanent virtual unfriend
Running A Focusrite Scarlet 6i6, tiny bit of latency when recording, though not too noticeable. Focusrite having partnered with Avid, not sure what they are like now. Next upgrade will probably be PCI when I can afford. Which could be a while. think it also worth waiting for something decent.