Audio interface, rack mounted or not ? Based on my requirements.

[Os78]

Hi all, just putting my first studio together after years of working with just software.

I have to get some monitors and an audio interface, I pretty much had my mind set on the rockit 5's plus the focusrite audio interface which is bundled at around £300. I have heard that the rockit 6 are much@ better but thinking about it, I don't actually want them too loud for noise purposes and I also have a kam amp and speakers package which I can use if I want to hear my music loud. The fact the rokit 5's are the only model bundled with an interface is a major factor in my choice as well.

I have just bought a music prodution desk of eBay which was a price too good to turn down and will have room for a midi keyboard, korg volca (all 3) and a surface controller(if I decide to get one) it has a few rack spaces, 18 and 4's. I was looking on eBay for some interfaces and saw a good deal for used rack mounted units, just wondered if they are generally better than ones such as the focusrite 212. One I'm looking at is the terratec 88 do I even need it if I'm not playing music too loud or does it help with sound quality?

 

[bandcoach]

your interface will have nothing to do with the quality of sound on your hard drives (the interface plays no part in writing the audio file to disk)

However, it will play a part in your perception of your audio through your monitors and thus will impact on the quality of your mix: the better your interface the better the audio out will be to your monitors, the more likely it is that your mixes will be better (i.e. flat and translatable across multiple platforms)

that said, unless your monitors are also super flat such an approach will only serve to highlight the flaws in your monitors

this is the problem of trying to get a decent sound in a small studio/homes studio: you have to spend money on several things to get a decent sound:
interface/converters,
speakers/monitors,
amplification for same (monitors/speakers with built in amplifiers are a compromise from go to woah)