I researched ADC/DAC combos in that price range and as you, kept finding people that were unhappy with whatever I found. So at the end, I purchased the RME ADI-2 Pro which at $2,000 is "a bit" more expensive.
If you are in US, buy it through Amazon and return it if there are issues.
I will also be interested in testing whatever you purchase as there is a good market need for a quality offering in that price range.
As much as I'd prefer to get an ADI-2 DAC or Pro, its way above my budget and the ADI-2 Pro can't take in mics. I've only been able to try other Steinbergs and PreSonus interfaces, as well as some Focusrite interfaces. They sound like an upgrade to the UMC204HD from personal hearing, though never able to borrow them long enough for measurements. That said, I don't wanna just limit my options to Steinbergs and Presonus just because they're around. But the biggest reason I've needed to upgrade is due to the DI input of the UMC204HD being bad, and getting a DI box doesn't solve that much, thus why I want to upgrade... but I do want to use it as something of a DAC and a bit of simplicity in a way.
I don't live in the US, but I'm fine with buying it from Amazon (and depending on the shipping fee, I may just have it sent to my country's proxy service to pay less for shipping).
I don't have experience with dozens of interfaces. I do have two Focusrite interfaces which have never given a single problem on Windows 7, 8, or 10. I recently started using a Macbook Pro (six months ago) and they are fine on that also. One of these will play on Linux (my preferred OS), but not record. The other is useless on Linux.
So I'm not saying reports of issues aren't true only that my experience has been fine with Focusrite.
You do find 10-15% of users having problems with nearly all brands. It probably depends on usage. I normally record a few channels with no processing going on. I do that after the fact. Some people run tons of channels and process while recording, and I'm not surprised that causes more issues.
Well, a few of my coworkers who were basically just trying to record voiceovers would somehow get bluescreens on their Windows machine (and its pretty decent spec'd PCs, no OC's) with a Focusrite interface using Reaper and Ableton Live. That said, yeah, even my other coworkers experience problems and what not. I guess I forgot to specify that what really scares me is that the Focusrite interfaces they used can even introduce bluescreen problems despite troubleshooting (uninstall and reinstall drivers and programs, even to go as far as formatting and reinstalling the OS and somehow the problem still arrives, and I even wonder what is going on that causes it to even reach those kinds of issues).
I even asked other Focusrite interface users if they experience this specific problem. While a very few did, outside of my co-workers, so many more said they haven't come across them.
And regarding latency, the ID14 has relatively low latency, as well as Focusrite. Their mic pres are also pretty good. I just wanna go for which one that may have a better DAC chip since I will have some downtime and I wanna relax and listen to my music, which I'll have to pass through to my Little Labs Monotor