303lovesit,
Check out the RME website. They do a whole range of soundcards and if you check out some reviews they are rated higher than the m-audio's. I have a 2496 and am quite pleased with it but I don't do much recording from an external source.
If you are recording from a few sources you may want a soundcard with better AD converters. You can readx about them here
www.rme-audio.com/.