Hello all,

I need to get a souncard for my new setup and the two options I am considering at the moment are;

a) buy an midrange soundcard (MOTU Ultralite or similar) but bypass the inbuilt converters by adding something quite nice (but not too high-endas finances don't allow, say a Benchmark etc...)

OR

b) to buy a nice all-in-one box (say a Metric Halo ULN-2 or an RME FF400, etc...) and have it all in one box.

Will the difference be appreciable given the examples above?

I don't have access to all this stuff so I will be buying blind...my research to date steers me to option 'a' but maybe the MHL/RME units are really as great as they are reviewed to be?

P.S I have a good sounding room, Dyn BM6's, limited but decent gear (Empirical Labs/Lexi/Avalon etc..) so I want to keep it all quality without going overboard in any one area...

Thanks for any thoughts...