Mac external Digital IO connector for external preamp

[ramonetl]

Hey All, got a question. I am looking for something similar to the function of the digital IO cards of the past. I have a few external preamps etc that I currently run into my QU32 and then to my Macbook. But I dont have the ability to bypass the internal preamps to accept just the signal from my pre to send via usb to my session. That got me to thinking of a inexpensive external unit without any preamps that would take my IO from the digital out on my pre directly to my mac. The unit doesnt have usb. I used to have a pair of echo firewire 12s that were great for this but since I went digital I sold them and now really only need a few inputs that I would like to be able to install into my protoos session settings. Any thoughts? Something usb3\c\tb is ideal since I am looking for something that will be not obsolete with my next purchase. I am thinking about getting creative with my group returns on the console but if I could add an interface to keep it always setup that would be nice too. Its not a huge deal to me but it would be nice to be able to run my digital IO directly to my macbook and add as a pt12 input. Most things I see are way over kill and usually have pres etc thereby also making it expensive. Thanks. Peter