USB Interface Devices

[mach1]

Hi all, new here...just looking for some opinions on different USB interfaces. I have researched several different ones and primarily I'm looking for something simple and effective. Only need a couple I/O's for the fact that I will be running just myself and instruments through one of my mixers into Sonar for editing and finalizing. The 2 that I'm leaning towards are the Yamaha AudioGram 3 and the Behringer UAC202. The AudioGram is relatively new on the market and therefore not many user reviews yet, (1) and this one was in yamaha's favor. The Behringer on the other hand, at a VERY low cost factor has tons of reviews and all very favorable. As I said I'm not looking for multi-track recording just a way to get a clean and quality sound into Sonar.

[TimOBrien]

Sorry but the old adage still applies: "Buy cheap, buy twice."

Here's a good guide and tested suggestions: http://www.tweakheadz.com/soundcards_for_the_home_studio.htm

[mach1]

Thanks for the reply Tim and with all due respect I'll have to disagree with your adage, "buy cheap buy twice"...to a point. Sometimes cheap will work and work well, in my case all I'm looking for is a clean and effective interface with no bells and whistles to transfer vocals and acoustic guitar from a Allen and Heath mixer into Sonar and then later mixing in backing tracks from a Motif ES directly patched into Sonar via USB.
The goal of my post was to reach out to someone that may have some input on the 2 USB interfaces I described. I will no doubt probably end up going with the Yamaha Audiogram 3 since my experince with Yamaha products over the years has been nothing but top shelf.

[ecc83]

The Berry 202 is a very handy and cheap box that should be in every electric musicians gig bag...but,

It has no input level controls and is 16bit only. One AI that seems to stand out at the moment is the Emu 0404usb 2.0. Rated as having very good converters for the £150 price point and excellent mic pre amps with 60dB of gain. Also has ground lift switches, almost mandatory if hooking up to a laptop or gitamp.

If you cannot push past £100, the M-A Fast track pro will do 24/44.1/48kHz and is as reliable as a wood burning stove but as with most AI's at that price, the mic pre's lack gain, low noise, but weak.

Dave.