Hi, and welcome!

I don't think you would notice any difference in the sound quality if you went through an MBox 2 (or 3) instead of your Inspire1394. It's unlikely to be better.

Whether the Mbox 2 and 3 were ever "professional quality" is a matter of opinion. Note that the Mbox 1 was a very different product.

What synth are you using?

Thanks for the Welcome,

I am using a Korg Trition Workstation.

There's a lot of info on the Web on usage and software for the Korg Triton, but I haven't been able to find much technical information on the hardware. What little I have been able to dig out indicates that there is a pair of main outputs (L/mono and R) and 4 other outputs, and that they are all unbalanced.

Taking this evidence plus the design date of the unit leads me to feel that the resulting sonic quality of the Triton feeding a Presonus Inspire 1394 would be limited by the Triton rather than the interface. You might just notice a reduction in quality by going to an Mbox 2 or 3 instead of the Inspire, but it's hard to say.

i get pretty good quality sound from the Inspire1394 Interface, but it is not as great as it sounds directly from the Trition.

OK, now you have to say how you are listening to these sounds. To hear the Triton directly, are you feeding its output to the same powered speakers as you normally have connected to the output of the computer interface? How does it sound if you use the "direct monitoring" facility in the Inspire so the inputs are sent directly through to the outputs?

First I listen to it through a large amp connected to the triton, then I listen to it through headphones connected to the Inspire1394(which sound pretty good). I do not have any output speakers connected to the inspire1394, but I got a creative sound blaster audigy speakers connected to my computer and I listen to the audio through those speakers after it is recorded. also, I transfer the mp3 master to an mp3 player and listen to it on my radio.

It sounds best from the amp. when i get it recorded onto the computer and listen to it(and my radio), it seems there is a loss to the sound and background sounds are not as clear as they are from the amp. it sounds pretty good and its good quality audio from the inspire 1394, but when it is directly from the trition to the amp it sounds the best.

when I listen to it from the amp it sounds crystal clear.

I consider the sound of it on the radio(cdplayer/mp3player) is the final sound that I want it to sound like. so sometimes after i listen to it on the cd player/radio I have to go back and adjust the volume on some tracks to make it sound how i want it to sound.

With this sort of testing, you have to be careful not to compare chalk with cheese. What I would do is take one of the ways of outputting sound (e.g. your "large amp") and use that as the reference for the tests. Buy or make a cable that will allow you to feed the output of the Inspire into the amp. Now you have a consistent acoustic path for the comparisons. I'm assuming you are talking about mono sound from the synth, although the principles would be the same for stereo.

You do three tests: (1) Synth direct to large amp. (2) Synth going through the Inspire in monitoring mode and out to the amp while recording to the computer. (3) Replay of the recording from (2) from the computer through the Inspire and out to the amp.

This will allow you to say whether the Inspire and/or the recording process is having an adverse effect on the perceived sound quality. If it is, that is one path that we have to tackle. If it's not, we have to analyse what it is about the further processing and the route down to MP3 that is causing the quality loss you are complaining about.

sounds like good advice.
I would have to get a rca to 1/4th chord