How far have interfaces come in the past 10-12 years?

[calaverasgrandes]

I'm still experimenting with the preamp gaining and impedance thing. I can say that I am totally convinced just by the guitar amp emulations.
Of course they do not quite get that ratty, beat up pawn shop tube amp sound. But they do a better job of being a playable amp inside my computer than anything else I've tried in the last 10 years.
The only place it fails is when you do something crazy like plug a bass guitar into the Plexi.
I know exactly what that sounds like, and this isnt it.
But other than that, it's perfect.
I want to get some drums in front of it to try out the Neve and API preamp models!
The sad part of that is that, like the guitar amp models, the Unison preamp modeling takes up a lot of the DSP power. I'd be hard pressed to use all 4 unison preamps at once without an external DSP box. Though with the 610B models I can get all 4 going.