I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with anyone per say but my experience this week has been as such: Replaced a delta 1010 which I have been using for the last 5 years with a MR816 CSX. I noticed pretty much right away that the high end sounded clearer. I noticed it in a couple of ways, mp3's sounded worse on the MR816, the defects in the mp3 conversion seemed to stand out more, also while recording high freq instruments like keyboard the high end of the sound sounds less hazy. Only thoughts I have is that the clock is better giving me less aliasing issues. Am I 100% level matched? No but it's pretty close, within a one or two db anyway. Same monitors, same listening position, same sample rates and bits, no changes to accoustic treatment. I'm also not using particularly high end monitors. They are Events that are about 5 or 6 years old that were around $850 total. Make what you wish of my experience. Are we talking a world changing difference, no of course not, would either one work well enough to produce something pro or near pro level, probably. And you may want to double check the signal diagrams for bypassing the preamps. Not all interfaces bypass the pre-amps just because you plug a TRS/TS into the jack. With the MR816 the only way to bypass the pre's is to use the two insert jacks or use the digital inputs. With the analog inputs the signal is routed to the preamp regardless of the cable type used. The lack of bypass has been verified by steinberg on their forum. I have no clue on the Profire. And there are other reasons to pay more tha $100/converter in an audio interface other than just the converters themselves. Things like on board dsp, pre-amps, digital inputs, stable low latency drivers, etc. do raise the price of an audio interface.