I decided on Apogee MiniMe USB

[barbital]

Ah, dumb c***sucker I am, I forgot that the Mini-Me didn't have balanced analog outputs. Only a headphone output.

Why oh why would Apogee not just ditch the headphone amp and instead supply analog outs? Surely it's easy to get a 3rd party headphone amp for not much money (think Xin SuperMini or SuperMacro believe me they are awesome headphone amps).

Why oh why...I am TRULY dumbstruck.

Ben

PS: Have since changed my idea to getting something that doesn't need another interface (for DAC). I know Metric Halo is good but only for Mac, so it's either the Onyx 400F or something else that has decent preamps. I know TC Konnekt have decent converters but I'm unsure of their mic preamp quality so I'm going to have to wait it out and read trusted reviews.

[danasti]

Originally Posted by barbital

Ah, dumb c***sucker I am, I forgot that the Mini-Me didn't have balanced analog outputs. Only a headphone output.

Why oh why would Apogee not just ditch the headphone amp and instead supply analog outs? Surely it's easy to get a 3rd party headphone amp for not much money (think Xin SuperMini or SuperMacro believe me they are awesome headphone amps).

Why oh why...I am TRULY dumbstruck.

Ben

PS: Have since changed my idea to getting something that doesn't need another interface (for DAC). I know Metric Halo is good but only for Mac, so it's either the Onyx 400F or something else that has decent preamps. I know TC Konnekt have decent converters but I'm unsure of their mic preamp quality so I'm going to have to wait it out and read trusted reviews.

Yeah - it's so they sell their mini dac.

If you are going for higher quality AD/DA. Try the RME stuff. The fireface 400 is right there in price. I've never heard it but I've heard various productions on the 800 and it's very good quality. The 400 seems to be portable. I'm a PT user but if I wanted portable I would go fireface 400 over mbox. Never heard the mackie or tc but the tc looks a little cheap to me.