Look at the multiface. they're 350-400 used and are 18in/18out. no preamps (8 line in, 8 lightpipe, spdif) but outstaning converters. also very flexible for upgrading down the line. i'm assuming you're looking at a device to do 2 audience mics and 2 sbd lines only?
i use a multi as my home sound card. rock solid and very clean. it's worth the extra $100 or so you'd sink into it on the front end.
Dirk
Thanks Dirk. Actually, I'm not looking for something for board and mics. The UA-5 will do that. I'm just looking for something that will allow me to go 8-12 tracks, directly to a laptop. I would love to get a fatty HD multitrack recorder, but the ones in my budget are not enough. The Fostex I looked at is 8 track, but only let's you do 4 simultaneously. I'd like to run mics on stage (8-12 of them) specifically. Many of the boards I record from are "full" and only allow for a matrix out, which frankly just doesn't sound good since the mix is to the house sound. I could EASILY improve the mix by taking a multi-track stage mix, and running board mix of the vocals. I can combine in post. Does the RME run USB or Firewire out? For some reason I want to think it runs on PCI card.
Multiface/multiset runs proprietary firewire cable to a PCMCIA card. It really doesn't get any better than this, IMO.
8 analog line inputs, 8 inputs via ADAT lightpipe and 2 SPDIF inputs.
If you're taking the lines off the direct outs of a console, this is the ideal device. Like I said, I use mine as my home soundcard. Have my DAT plugged into the SPDIF input, and several other things (cassette deck, FM, XM, etc) plugged into the other various line inputs. In the field I'm using an Alesis HD24, but that's probably not something you're looking for.
Another option is the Echo Layla.
I'd skip Lynx - they're top of the line but probably out of your price range (based on your first response above).
MOTU is decent overall, but their preamps are poor quality. The D/A conversion is great though.
Dirk