Are those 1/4 inch inputs mic-level? instrument-level? line-level?
The output from your little Sony gadget is almost certainly line-level or headphone-level (nearly the same).
If you are feeding that signal into a sensitive input (like mic-level or instrument-level) into your unidentified audio interface, then you will certainly hear significant distortion
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Recording audio without metering and monitoring is exactly like framing and focusing without looking at the viewfinder.