If you ask me, they're both a little out to lunch. (I mean using all the specs, vs. relying on their cachet.) I'd argue that Apogee is *hardly* worth it -- I've never *liked* the sound of their convertors. Their filters are very "shimmery" or "smooth" on the high-end, but it's not what I enjoy, nor what I ever got my clients to go for when I was doing high-resolution digital mastering daily. (I traded daily use of Sonic Solutions for occasional mastering using roll-your-own on Linux about 7 years ago, when I became Mr. Mom for a while and then fell into mathematics and DSP to keep the mind alive. Pretty fun -- haven't left! I only miss the hardware DSP on the odd occasion...) I built some D/As out of a Crystal 24-bit evaluation board that blew the socks off an equivalent Apogee -- with a good clean power supply and clock. For about $200 US! For A/D, I found that a 20-bit Burr-Brown chip *sounded* better than the Apogees at 44.1/48k and 24-bit, though most of that was still the input filtering. For 96k+, you may get different results, but I still don't like Apogees sound -- it washes out way too much high-end detail and does funny things to transient response in my professional opinion, because of their stylized filters. Now if a client says they really *do* like Apogees and have to have them, I'd never argue with them and go rent a pair for making their record. I might slip in a little blind testing along the way, but if they didn't say "Hey - what happened!", I'd let it slide and respect their wishes. Apogee makes a good product, so I'm not trying to say that they are crap -- but they also have a marketing vibe, and you don't want to confuse engineering and marketing! If it was a personal purchase, I'd be looking at Troisi convertors (not so much $$) or db Technologies (if I needed something to *really* spend $$ on). [Who are the British guys with the nice convertors for about $12k that are really a radar DSP house?? They sound pretty good -- Mike something.....] Anyway -- this is where the subjectivity *belongs*! Get convertors because they sound good to you, and that's unassailable. You can't argue with (or prove) "I like it and it makes me happy." Don't buy them because you feel you "should" somehow. Also -- many places will arrange an evaluation for a week or so of some high-end products. I don't know where you are geographically, but I've made arrangements for some pretty big products to be flown in for a few days. If the convertors are that expensive, you can't be expected to buy them sight unseen. (I know AID in LA might be amenable, or American Pro Audio in Minnetonka, MN, or several other dealers out East in the States. In Europe or South America I could probably dredge up a couple of old contacts) Keeping the Cult of Saints and Relics **{1} from between your ears and your music is often harder than it sounds. "Only a poor craftsman blames his tools," and I'd also say many who credit their tools are dilettants! I've always tried not to be one of either group! ;) Cheers, Phil Mendelsohn Owner/Chief Engineer, Hotdish Mastering Past President Upper Midwest section (Mpls) AES (And a lot of other things that don't justify my opinion any more than honesty and a whack of common sense will justify anybody's!) -- Dept. of Mathematics, 342 Machray Hall U. of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 2N2 Office: 446 Machray Hall, 204-474-6470 http://www.rephil.org/ phil at rephil dot org **{1} The Cult of Saints and Relics is any group of afficionados (not limited to audio) who believe that because Saint so-and-so <Insert Famous Name -- George Martin, Roger Nichols, Massenburg, Swedien,...> used the relic <Neve, Telefunken, [your most coveted gear here]>, then it must be the key to success.