If you have the money, don't think about anything else.

 

Go RME. You won't regret it.

Out of all the snake oil, false promises, and worthless hype in the audio game, RME is one of the few things that actually lives up. There isn't much out there that wins my full endorsement, but I've never regretted getting an RME interface for even a single moment. One of the best places you can put your hard earned money.

 

Last edited: Dec 7, 2016

Dude. Sorry to burst your bubble, but some random generic drivers that cost 60 EUR is bullshit. There's ASIO4All for that - it's widely supported, works great and is free. Not to mention shitty "let's throw in support for everything" drivers is definitely not a "good alternative" to drivers made for that exact piece of hardware made to work with that exact operating system. Besides... what the actual fuck, Mac has CoreAudio for that - you don't need any drivers as they are in the system. You almost certainly don't want to add shitty drivers from a random old website (unchanged since 2000 - there're "pretty things" like the whole website is built using tables, has inline styling and isn't even closed properly with </html>). Yuck. What's wrong with you dude?

 

RME Fireface UCX here, tried both Firewire and USB connections and has been rock solid for a year and counting, swopping sample rates and bit depths in different projects all the time.............all good.

 

happy owner of a hdspe aio pcie plus ais extension... in short the best audio card ive ever had... very stable drivers... maybe depends on the hardware you have... I also recommend lynx cards...

 

happy owner of a hdspe aio pcie plus ais extension... in short the best audio card ive ever had... very stable drivers... maybe depends on the hardware you have... I also recommend lynx cards...

 

Try to avoid the Fireface 800, the inputs and outputs goes defective very fast! I dont know if they fixed it in the recent version. I use HDSPe MADI Card. Rock solid!

 

16 years on RME, all in all 2 cards, a Digiface, 3 AD8
Reliable, solid, good sound

 

RME has one of the best if not the best latency in the industry. Still, latency is an equation of more parts than just the soundcard itself, and i mean of course cpu, ram ,hd/ssd etc etc. I own a pci-e MOTU with 48 digital i/o and when recording drums i can go as low as 1.5 ms @96khz with no hicups. Never had a problem with drivers since day1 and this card has been on 3 different pc configs over the last 9 years. Their driver on these interfaces is the "set it and forget it" thingie. And actually MOTU was the first company to have win7 drivers. RME and M-Audio drivers were out over 6 months later. Nothing to blame here of course. I haven't used the new MOTU line so i cannot really confirm anything for their new ones.
Soundwise though, the best card i have heard lately is not an RME nor Apogee not even UAD. It's the Antelope Audio that has amazed me ( and many others in a demonstration for studio owners ). We were shown the Orion studio and Zen studio interfaces , these cards have really hi end audiophile converters and they sound magnificent. My next buy will definitely be from Antelope. If you can afford any of the Antelope series , just check them out if you can.

 

I have an Apogee Duet.. and yes there is a diference in the signal clarity from lower interfaces models.. Even Not "Audio People" can ear it.. As about the drivers they always work good, never let me down.. (Mac Only) But secretly i wish they like give me some kind o problem so i can get an excuse to change to RME. Something like the Fireface UCX (Look sweet) or the Babyface Pro..

I dont know if i´m gonna get some improvement in sonic quality from the duet.. I like to think yes.. And i can use it in Windows

But in the end you have to see what fits you needs.. I`m a gear nut..

 

The UCX is fantastic kit. If only it had that second headphone output it would be incredible. Alas, it is only incredibl.

 

RME are great, and you can't really go wrong with them. However, you can achieve the system stability and everything else you're looking for listed in your post at a much cheaper price. About a year ago I picked up a MOTU 828 Mk2 FW for £80 in the UK. It has tons of ins/outs(analog balanced, MIDI, toslink etc) andcan doup to 96kHz sample rate with low latency. MOTU drivers are rock solid and I've had zero issues with it and been rock solid in Cubase 8.5, Reason 9.1, Ableton 9.7 and Studio One 3.3.1 (I don;t anticipate any updates will change this). Could be a just as reliable, yet much cheaper alternative to consider?

 

Are you also speaking about Windows drivers?

 

Yup. Windows 10 Pro 64 bit with build 1607 (14393.447) to be precise, but has worked with all Windows 10 versions fine for me.

You could also get the Mk3 828 should you be inclined to spend more, but from emory it's not really much different. If firewire isn't your thing, it's available in a USB version too.