Affordable Audio Interfaces, Which is the best value? Options

[DEVIOUS]

Hey please help with this poll. I think a lot of people are out there in my position looking to set themselves up in the digital recording world. What's the best value?

By value I want to take everything into account- quality, supplied software, ins and outs, midi support, everything.

Get voting!

[scrambles]

I voted Ozone purely on money consideration. But for the record, I did purchase an Ozone and realized it wasn't enough for me and that I would feel better with the higher quality interface and huge software bundle that you get with the M-Box. I then purchased an Edirol PCR80 that so far I'm very pleased with. (Returned the Ozone with no problems on refund.)

Total was $450 for M-Box (Sweetwater) and
$290 for PCR80 (Ebay, brand new)

When you look at the Ozone for $250 its hard to beat seeing as the AI is included. But I don't really know about the quality of the preamp and the board itself felt cheap to me. If you can deal with only 25 keys its not a bad option, but also it doesn't come with any software so that's another consideration.

All in all, I've got plenty to learn ahead of me working with Protools, Reason, Sampletank, Live, etc. and feel like the MBox will provide high enough quality starting out. I was definitely going to be using Protools in the future(I'm in school for it now), so it made the decision easier for me since I knew I needed the software at some point anyway.

I came to make my decision after at least a month of searching these forums. I live on Macmusic now. Great site. Even then I still changed my mind so I hope this helps a little.

Mike