I own and operate a recording studio so my studio rig is all high end stuff. I recently decided to do some work at home on my MacBook. I did a lot of research and recommend (and now use) this:
http://www.sounddevices.com/products/usbpre2.htm
It's about $650. It's a different concept than the Duet in the sense that this is bigger, more robust. But still very portable... I researched the range of inexpensive converters and settled on this because it requires no drivers on MAC and is more of a piece of "hardware". Just plug in, set your sound preferences to choose this device as the input and output and GO!
It has more hands on "analogish" controls. Like knobs for speaker volume, headphone volume, mic level. It has a limiting feature on each input that you can turn on and off via little dipswitches on the back. The dipswitches are very little toggles that you switch up and down with a paper clip on the back panel. They control things like phantom power, 15db pad, what the knobs on the front control, etc. I've found that once I've set them I rarely change them.
This device can be used as a stand alone box on location as just a mic pre. It also allows 2 headphone outputs (one is 1/4 inch and the other 1/8 inch). Nice feature if you plan on recording with 2 people. You'll need a Direct Box if you want to plug in a keyboard or a guitar directly into the USBPre 2. This changes the impedance from Hi to Low so that the instrument becomes a mic level signal. Like this:
http://www.radialeng.com/r2011/prodi.php
You'll need a 1/4 inch hi impedance instrument cable to go into it and a microphone cable to go into the USBPre 2. The Duet has a cable/tentacle thing that allows different cables to be plugged into it whereas the USBPre 2, being bigger, has the jacks right onboard.
As with all these converters you need a mic cable, 2 powered speakers and 2 balanced cables (if you plan to use speakers), headphones, etc... It comes with supplied USB cable. I definitely agree you should use speakers for mixing.
I believe the Duet uses a Maestro software which brings a window up on your computer. There you will control parameters of your sound. On the USBPre 2 you will control everything from the box.
I considered boxes like the RME Babyface, Duet 2, because of the great amount of positive reports online. However I saw enough reports of paint chipping off the Babyface and the Duet having Driver issues that I went with a no Driver unit. To be fair there were a few issues with the USBPre 2 on Windows, which I believe requires an ASIO Driver. Apparently they are solved... But there will be issues with everything,
That is why I like this unit's concept. It's a piece of hardware more than anything.
I eliminated all the inexpensive devices like MAudio because I wanted higher quality conversion and pro quality. Can the cheap devices work? Hell yeh it's what goes in and out of the converter that trumps the converter. The music man! My brother bought a $250 Samson microphone that is the converter, headphone amp and microphone all in one. It worked great. Could you tell the quality difference between that one and mine? Yes... But not that huge of a difference as long as you follow correct recording techniques and have decent talent. Pros though need that extra quality/fidelity to go along with the talent/ability...
Let me know if you need any help if you decide to get the USBPre 2. Oh yeh another important thing - every time I called Sound Devices with a question they picked up the phone and got me right through to tech support.
