best gear for making beats (dnb, trip-hop, etc)

[pentajigga]

specifically, im in the market for a new AD/DA 2 channel unit.
been looking at the hedd 192(ive used it to master at the studio i work at and thought the FX might come in well handy)... and UA 2192, which seems to have some very positive comments going around town, especially about the headroom and what it sounds like when you hit the reds....

i do most of my work internally in logic5 and live4(beta)... soft-samplers, soft-synths, etc... but routinely route a mono or stereo track out through a AD/DA (right now an RME ADI 8 DS) to one of my comps -- gates sta-level, distressor -- or some FX -- sherman filterbank, etc.

i dont record using microphones, at most ill take a line-level signal in from one of my hardware synths. i only use, at most 2 channels of AD/DA at a time...

any recommendations.. ive heard very many different points of view based on genre of music in terms of convertors...

for me my RME hit the reds too soon and then dont sound terribly good when they do...

ive heard the hedd 192 has a lack of headroom and wondered if this would really matter to me.. perhaps im recording line level stuff too loud unnecessarily?

anyway... any thoughts on this, or any other gear that would help me get a big(ger) sound..

70% of my work is instrumental drum and bass for large soundsystems...

my monitoring is fine, i have mackies which i know quite well via a benchmark DAC-1...

so im looking first for convertors and then for any new toys that help samples find new life or fun tools in the studio that will aid in the creative atmosphere....

thanks to all

perry
new orleans