[Tobiah]

Are you working with your M-Audio interface and not getting good
results? If the A/D converters in it are respectable, you could
continue to use that and try to find a preamp that will give you
enough gain at low enough noise to be usable for your application.

I get surprisingly clean results on things like classical guitar.
I turn the gain knobs up about 3/4. When recording quieter things
as I've described, I need to turn the gain up all the way (they
say it's 60dB) and I then hear loads of whiteish noise. What's that
trick I can use to make sure it's not coming from the mics or room?
A resistor placed correctly?

The unit sometimes generates odd blips and squeals which had me
looking at replacing it. It's also really old and was not supported
past Windows 7. I'm running 10 right now. The Presonus 1810 looks
like it does everything I'm used to. I know this means nothing
scientifically, but since they rate their preamps as providing
80dB of gain, I thought, hey, maybe they'll at least be quieter
than the ones I have at 60dB.