How many tracks do you want to record at the same time? You've only got 2 mic's, so will 2 phantom powered xlr in's do the trick, or do you want to be able to expand to more xlr inputs in the future?
The stuff you've got listed can do a variety.
The firepod (which looks pretty cool) does 8 at once, all phantom powered xlr ins., plus it's got a heaphone amp with volume controls. . .no need for a mixer. It's about $600-ish?
The firewire 410 has 4 inputs, and two of them are phantom powered mic/line xlr ins, so to get 4 mic's in you'd need an additional 2 pre-amps. It's also got a heaphone amp. . .again, no need for a mixer. It's also firewire (along with the firepod), so no computer cards to install. Less inputs, plus you've got to buy external mic pre's to increase mic inputs. Bout $400
The Gina3g has got the least ammount of inputs but is the most expandable. You get 2 phantom powered mic/line inputs, but it's got an ADAT input, which is where your expandability comes in. You can buy a mic pre strip like the behringer ada8000 or the M-Audio octane that has an ADAT out, and suddenly you've got 8 xlr ins from your strip and 2 xlr ins from your gina3g. It's about $350.
Echo makes
a layla3g which is like the gina3g but has 6 additional line ins, so you could have analogue ins total. It's more like $500
There are some other really good options out there from other companys as well. One that I think would be a great inexpensive option is the E-Mu 1212m and the behringer ada8000. The 1212M has 2 line inputs and 2 line outputs, but it also has ADAT in, so you could hook up the ada8000 to it for a total of 2 line ins and 8 xlr ins. You could eventually pick up a dual mic pre for the 2 line ins and have 10 mic ins. The 1212M is about $200 and the ada8000 is around $225. The E-Mu also does onboard dsp effects, so your computer doesn't have too. This makes latency go down when tracking with effects. A pretty cool little feature.
Here's how it breaks down:
Firepod: 8 mic/line ins, firewire, $600
Delta 410: 2 mic/line ins/2 line ins, firewire: $400
Gina3g: 2 mic ins, pci: $350, add a behringer ada8000 and you've got 10 mic/line ins for about $575 total
E-Mu 1212M/Berry ada8000: pci, 10 mic/line ins: ~$425
If you're willing to spend a bit more and you want a really nice expandible firewire interface, check out the MOTU 828mkII, but at $750 it's pricey. I'd love to get my hands on
an E-Mu 1820M ($500)
Just depends how how many inputs you need. Each card has a few little things here and there that make it unique, so maybe one taylors perfect to what you want to do. The sound quality probably won't be terribly detectible between them, but I think the E-Mu probably has about the best converters (though there are only 2 of them), and I've heard several negatives about the delta, but I love delta stuff. Like I said, to a non-professional ear, the sound diff. will probably be negligable.
Happy hunting
