I'll make this brief. Apogee is well known for doing quality interfaces for musicians and engineers. Their Symphony line is really 2nd to ProTools when it comes to quality.
I purchased the Duet2 to be a way into my system for doing voice overs using its mic pre. I also wanted a nifty interface for my Avid Symphony editing system feeding my Genelec near-field monitors. On that front it does what it's supposed to do.
I was hoping it might make a good DAC for listening. Unfortunately this really doesn't run with the high end equipment. It raises an interesting point, though. Most musicians use gear to record the music which 'wows' us utilizing technology most of us would deem inferior.
We shove signals through silver headphone cables and the highest end tube gear to reproduce sound which originates through copper cables, cheap guitar pickups and less than perfect recording interfaces. Quite ironic.
The Beatles didn't record on 4 track tape (yes, tape) until the late '60s. Some of their most complex works were done by playing taped recordings live in the booth and old-fashioned mixing. Legend has it that Queen, in recording their masterpiece "Bohemian Rhapsody", had recorded so many overdubs on their master that Brian May at one point held the tape up to light and realized they'd nearly worn the tape through. A quick mix-down to fresh tape saved their work.
So what does this have to do with the Duet2? Well as a recording interface, it does a decent job. I've done a lot of vocal and voice over work using this small box, some of which you've probably heard on the airwaves and didn't blink twice. But on critical playback in my high-end rig, it sounds like garbage. It's both noisy and colored. Irony indeed.
It serves my edit bay just fine. And the design is snazzy. Just don't plug it in and expect to hear magic on your Audeze LCDs.
Any comparison between this and other similar audio interface in the same price range or maybe more ?