By far my favorite AD and DA convertor. Is it the best sounding? No. I think the best sounding is still the Lavry Blue or the prism high end converters. But I prefer the RME fireface 800 to the apogee DA16 AD16, because the apogee colors the mid range in a way that really does not compliment electronic music that well. What makes this the best in my opinion? The drivers, and how it works amazingly perfect with the PC and the MAC. The built in mixer and control panel in the os are simply amazing and very useful for metering and making sure levels are good. This is a solid stable product. So many devices out there have crappy drivers, tc electronics is horrid. This is the best best buy. You get a ton of ins and outs. And kick ass sound quality. I shot it out with the lynx two cards, and my kurzweil AD DA. I would say the the rme had better bass than all the other converters I tested. But the high end seemed a little pinched and not as open as either the lynxtwo or the kurzweil. But mastering can usually help that enough. The lynxtwo and the Kurzweil both cannot touch the low end of the RME FireFace 800. So for bass, stability, drivers, and utilities the rme fireface 800 won me over hands down.. And don’t think the fireface 400 is the same thing, that thing is over priced garbage. Don’t even bother with the fireface 400. If you look around and hagle on price, you can get the fireface 800 for about 1150 new.

Input AD: 8 x 1/4″ TRS, 4 x XLR Mic, 1/4″ TRS Line, all servo-balanced. 1 x 1/4″ TS unbalanced
Output DA: 8 x 1/4″ TRS, servo-balanced, DC-coupled signal path. 1 x 1/4″ TRS unbalanced
Input Digital: 2 x ADAT optical or SPDIF optical, SPDIF coaxial (AES/EBU compatible)
Output Digital: 2 x ADAT optical or SPDIF optical, SPDIF coaxial (AES/EBU compatible)
MIDI: 1 x MIDI I/O via 5-pin DIN jacks, for 16 channels low jitter hi-speed MIDI

Dynamic range AD: 109 dB RMS unweighted, 112 dBA
THD AD: < -110 dB (< 0.00032 %)
THD+N AD: < -104 dB (< 0.00063 %)
Crosstalk AD: > 110 dB

Dynamic range DA: 116 dB RMS unweighted, 119 dBA (unmuted)
THD DA: < -103 dB (< 0.0007 %)
THD+N DA: < -100 dB (< 0.001 %)
Crosstalk DA: > 110 dB

Input/Output level for 0 dBFS @ Hi Gain: +19 dBu
Input/Output level for 0 dBFS @ +4 dBu: +13 dBu
Input/Output level for 0 dBFS @ -10 dBV: +2 dBV
Sample rate internally: 32, 44.1, 48, 64, 88.2 kHz, 96 kHz, 128, 176.4, 192 kHz
Sample rate externally: 28 kHz - 200 kHz
Frequency response AD/DA, -0.1 dB: 5 Hz - 21,5 kHz (sf 48 kHz)
Frequency response AD/DA, -0.5 dB: < 5 Hz - 43.5 kHz (sf 96 kHz)
Frequency response AD/DA, -1 dB: < 5 Hz - 70 kHz (sf 192 kHz)