Is there a high end all in one interface?

[Seti808]

I'm trying to help a friend get a little more serious about recording.

I'm trying to keep it simple for him, so I was hoping there was a unit that has decent pre's
A/D & D/A with midi too.

His budget is around $800

I was thinking the apogee mini me off ebay (I have seen them for $700) and a midi man interface. Then he would still need a D/A converter which would be over his budget but I'm trying to talk him into saving up a bit more.

any other better ideas?

[TRW]

Metric Halo ULN-2 looks kewl! Apparently comparable to the mini-me...

www.mhlabs.com

in the right price range too

-Tom

[Seti808]

He's on a pc laptop.


Metric Halo has always looked cool, but only for Mac

thanks anyway.

[tINY]

You can't have a high-end pre-amp and converter with a MIDI interface in it. Try asking this on "so much gear, so little time". High end mic pre-amps start at $1200....



-tINY

[natpub]

Originally Posted by tINY

High end mic pre-amps start at $1200....

http://www.johnhardyco.com/prices.html

M-1 Mic Preamp Components And Options Sold Individually:
M-1 mainframe with 4 channel capacity $525.00
MPC-1 mic preamp card, less options $350.00

exi

[Audiopool]

Originally Posted by tINY

You can't have a high-end pre-amp and converter with a MIDI interface in it. Try asking this on "so much gear, so little time". High end mic pre-amps start at $1200....



-tINY

You are talking about high-priced preamps I guess... High end preamps are found in just about any pricerange.
Line Audio is one example. Sounds better than Earthworks (no nasty oscillation in high frequencies like the Lab 102) and it costs 900 USD for eight channels (as opposed to 3000 USD for the 2 ch. Lab 102).
Discrete input stage as opposed to Earthworks op amp based, same low distorsion and noise but lower price.
Adat version will be available soon (at about 1200 USD). i saw it the the Frankfurt Exhibition in April. Also an AES/EBU version will be out soon.
Distributed through: www.mastersounds.net

[xqtion]

Hey Audiopool, I also noticed that Line Audio makes some microphones. http://www.lineaudio.se/linemic.htm
How are they? Thanks.

[Audiopool]

They are nice. Very transparent sounding. No emphasized higs like most condensers.
They are based on prepolarized capsules and he combines three of them for one channel to get low self noise. The four channel QM12 is very nice, I used it for live symphony orchestra recording. It works fine for this, but for sensitive application like studio recording of chamber music it will be a bit too noisy. I know that they will make updates pretty soon with new low noise capsules.

[xqtion]

Great thanks!!