I think interface is important, but I’ve always leaned harder on D/A quality than A/D conversion quality of an interface.
One can do far more damage by mixing with blinders on (crap D/A), than suffer from the marginal differences between A/D converters from one $300 interface to another $700 interface.
Same goes for the importance of room treatments. The best gear in the world makes no difference if you can’t hear what it is doing, or not doing.
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there is more to an IO though then just the AD / DA converters. all channels before the conversion have to have a analog path. are you going through the Preamp section? even more things in there. the digital clock. witch helps the A/Ds sound their best. etc.
my point being. if you have 3k into an A4, and a RTYM.
why cheap on the IO?
yeah listening enviroment and stuch is important. but you still have to go through you IO. (unless you are working on an analog mixer.) so 2$ speakers. connected to a 300$ behringer interface?. well i think you get it.
its (the IO) literally the first thing your audio is going to go through.
im not saying go nuts and buy the most expensive IO. but setting a really low budget. and buying from a company know to make bad cheap gear. seems weird. if you invest to much in synths.
if one has these synths. i would think they would want them to sound as good as possible. ??
you could get something of OK cost. like a fire face… (good interface i’ve heard) then down the road if you want better quality get the Black Lion Audio mods done.
I know this is a bit pricier than what OP was looking for, but my UAD Apollo Twin Duo just landed … and, holy shit.
I’ve just spent half an hour using it to track my Rytm using the bundled UA-610-B preamp emulation, to my ears it sounds amazing. I hadn’t really expected much from [url=“http://www.uaudio.com/blog/using-unison”]UAD’s unison technology, but it’s just beautiful. Night and day from my old Focusrite Saffire.
Specifically, Unison-enabled UAD preamp plug-ins reconfigure the physical input impedance, gain staging response, and other parameters of Apollo’s mic preamp hardware to match the emulated preamp’s design characteristics.
Now seems very likely to me that I’ll only be using overbridge at the composition stage - tracking with these preamps adds a whole other layer of nectar.
The down side is the lack of connectivity, plus it’s a bit short on DSP grunt - I’m sure that the UAD plugins will be addictive as hell. Can’t wait to try their API emulation, but even four instances of the 610-b has topped it out at 96kHz. Thunderbolt, Mac only, plus nothing is cheap when it comes to UAD. But still worth serious consideration imho.
did i read this wrong?
your audio interface is basically the most important thing in the chain when it comes to audio quality. specially if your recording into your computer using any of its analog channels. a bad IO with a bad jittery clock, and cheap Op amps, and poor construction. . well why bother with thousands in analog synths and gear if your just gonna record them with crap.?
i have a Motu interface with modification to the analog channels.
the mods made it night and day with what i was hearing. i couldn’t imagine how bad an A4 or Rytm would sound through a behringer IO.
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No need to imagine, hear for yourself: Lynx Aurora 16 vs Behringer ADA8000 - Gearspace
If I’m recording anything but synths, I’m investing in microphones, preamps, recording space and time before I’ll even think about replacing a semi-decent audio-interface. If synths is all I do, it moves up the chain but still: Monitors, room treatment trump conversion every time in my books if it’s not complete rubbish to begin with.
Keep in mind, I’m using Metric Halo gear so I obviously think the audio interface is an important part of the chain. Just not anywhere near as important as it’s cracked up to be.
tru dat!
yes, there’s alot of hyperbole around converter quality no doubt. Having said that, I’m also using an Apollo twin myself, and am quite satisfied with the sound, but wouldn’t dare suggesting/recommending it to anyone except if they had already invested heavily into UAD plugins.
All The new audio interfaces have quite decent conversion, it’s a game of inches. What is important is that all the other features of an interface are appealing to a specific users’ needs (reliability, latency, channel counts, onboard DSP, expandability etc)
PS: I have all the UAD unison plugs except for the new 88RS - they’re all pretty good, in their own way 
The 610s are smooth, the API is aggressive and the 1073 is somewhere betweenthe two… If you already have the 610B, I strongly recommend demoing the 610A as well (there’s a good discount on it this month too, and it’s -50% full retail for 610B owners to begin with!) oh sorry for OT rambilng folks 
Brilliant advice as always from the forum members. I’m sold on the idea of the Babyface interface and will be making a purchase ASAP.
Cheers!
Personally I would put interface above room treatment. Rooms, treatment and monitors are expensive and hard, especially when you realize “I need to move into a bigger house.” I moved to headphones with periodic monitor and car checks. It’s possible to get good results that way, once you learn things like “my headphone don’t render what’s below 60hz or so well”.
I can only agree with the above statements.
For $500 you can DIY some brilliant room treatment including 2 or 4 traps in corners. For electronic music, with a wide dynamic range and a lot of articulation in sub and bass frequencies, I think it’s number 1 priority, if you have the money. If you don’t, just spent $100 and tile some wall space for starters.
Then, for me, it’s about TONE. I achieve that through gear and knowing how to use my gear, preamps and hardware FX and samplers - tone for days. Though I want more tone, always more tone options!
Tone influences my composition, probably more than any other factor 
Bottom line though, if your interface is shaving off tone, what’s the point in all of that investment? Unless you use primarily soft instruments and FX.
That audient id14 looks like an amazing deal for $300. It has basically everything I would need if the drivers are as low latency as the babyface. It would be hard not to try if I was in the market.
Also another +1 for the ada8000. The only minor annoyance on mine is that one of the (unfortunately) stepped gain controls is slightly off compared to other channels. But it’s far from a big deal. Sounds excellent to me.