Audible difference upgrading converters with my gear?

[Brian Scherzer]

Realizing that I don't record drums in my basement studio, and never utilizing over two inputs at any one time in my tracking, I decided to do the best I could to upgrade my old system (Digi001) to a better one that would fit my budget. I purchased a new PC (Sweetwater) and concentrated on trying to get reasonably good gear that would handle the two tracks rather than lesser gear that could handle up to 8 tracks at a time.

I purchased the Pacifica preamp, a Pearlman TM1, and just ordered a UA2-1176 dual compressor. Now I have to make a decision whether to add converters. I read that the Digi003 converters were certainly better than the older Digi001, but that they are still not up to snuff to take best advantage of the front-end gear. I have no idea what adding some better converters would translate into as regards the end result. I had never paid attention to converters before, but don't want to hold back the front-end gear if the converters in the 003 are now the weak link in the chain. At the same time, $2000+ is a lot for me at the moment if the improvement in sound can only be heard by those with "golden ears". For the gear I have, would adding better converters (Apogee, Lynx, etc.) truly give an audible difference? What differences would I likely notice?

[owlmonkeys]

Metric Halo Mobile I/O ULN-2

2 channel ad/da converter, I have it's eight channel bigger brother, the 2882, going into my 003 through ADAT, unbelievable conversion, especially for the price.

It can be hard to believe without tangible examples, but good conversion really does make things sound clearer/cleaner and makes it easier to know what is there, like many comparisons in audio, it is something that has to be heard to understood/believed. If you have a friend with good converters, or can somehow get access to some, make a little playlist of your favourite songs or mixes you have done, tracks that you know really well, and have a little shoot-out between your current system and the converters, listen close . It has to be said, also that monitors/headphones make a huge difference, it could be argued that good monitors are more important than converters, but then, that leads into the room you are in and it's acoustics and how they are placed and where you are siting, etc, let's just stick to converters for now.