it's open for debate, but i listened to rme multi-face, benchmark, apogee, lucid, lynx, digidesign, motu...pretty much everything i could and found the lynx 2 sounds most like the high-end stuff in terms of clarity. i was also looking seriously into ramsa which is panasonic's high-end and a friend of mine who's a studio recordist [does large orchestral work] really felt that they were tops for 2k. i wasn't certain about the osx drivers and support w/ the ramsa, so i went w/ the lynx 2.
i didn't consider m-audio or other lesser quality cards for studio rig. my mobile setup uses a firewire m-audio thing which is fine for live--very stable/reliable, knock wood
