I've had an old presonus insipre 1934 for years now and I've had a lot of issues with it. I'm finally looking to upgrade.

I will be using my interface with a Rode Nt1a microphone, an iMac computer and monitoring with yamaha hs80m's. These are my choice in order of increasing price.

M audio Fast Track C400 - $250
Focusrite Saffire 6 - $270
Presonus Firestudio - $300
Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 - $300
Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 - $319
Focusrite Scarlett 18i6 - $379
Focusrie Saffire Pro - $450
M-Audio Profire 610 - $500
Apogee Duet 2 - $600

I'm in Australia so the prices might be a bit different to what they are in USA.

From what I've read it seems like the Apogee Duet 2 has great reviews, but $600 is REALLY stretching the budget.

I would much rather spend around $300. I would only be willing to spend more if the difference in quality for home recording on the Rode Nt1a while monitoring with yamaha hs80m's will be significantly different?

I would really appreciate some help or feedback?

Thank you.

FWIW I went through quite a few interfaces before I settled on my present Apogee. I did this by buying second hand off ebay and then selling it on when I decided it wasn't what I wanted. I didn't lose very much money this way (in fact I usually sold for a little more than I paid - it's worth working on the presentation of an ebay listing). I think this is a reasonable strategy for getting hands-on experience of different interfaces.

The nearest I can get to anything on your list that I've used are the Profire Lightbridge and Apogee Ensemble. Both were/are excellent, particularly the Apogee.

CC

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Put the fun back into dysfunctional.
Mr Punch's Studio

Thanks for the reply. I'm really leaning towards the apogee duet 2 since I've been reading such great reviews about it. Had anyone had much experience with it?

In the US, the USB PRE 2 by SD is about the same price as the Apogee.

The Apogee and the USB Pre 2 are both high quality products that meet very different needs. Worth a look.

Well your starting point should be what your i/o requirements are. No point in getting something with 8 or 16 i/o eg the Presonus Firestudio, if you only want to record one or two sources at a time. Also, are you ever likely to use Windows as that would rule out the Duet. Once you've made these sorts of decisions, the choices start to narrow down a bit.

If you are going to stretch to a Duet you might as well consider an RME Babyface which is probably a better all round interface than the Duet. There is a good comparison review of the two interfaces on You Tube.

I'm pretty sure I will be fine with just recording one or two sources at a time for now. Also not likely to want to use the interface on windows.

From what I can find it seems like the cheapest I could get the RME babyface for would be around $850. That's just too far out of my price range.

Thanks everyone for the helpful replies.

At the moment it seems like it's between the Apogee Duet 2, the Komplete Audio 6, and the M-Audio Profire 610?

That's odd. It must be down to pricing and supply in Oz. I checked DV here in the UK and the Apogee is slightly cheaper than the Babyface which has now been reduced to £429 (Euro XR doom and gloom).