which sound card is better?

[Timo]

Yep, the 24/96 will also likely have better ASIO drivers for lower latency audio work. Creative have always been little tw*ts regard ASIO and audio recording functionality on their soundcards. Thus, their cards are mainly for gaming, entertainment and audio playback, and they're excellent at what they do in those areas.

I believe you can install two soundcards at once. I know for one I used a consumer SoundBlaster Platinum (PCI + breakout) along with a more professional Motu Traveler (firewire) soundcard together at the same time without any problems.

This is not to say that all soundcards can be used together, though. I guess it's a "suck it and see" scenario, to see if they can sit alongside each other without throwing their toys out the pram.

You can always make an image of your OS drive (using something like Norton Ghost), before installing both soundcards and drivers. And if in the event they don't play ball you can simply re-install the hard-drive image you took to restore the OS back to as it was originally.

[IamEvil]

Ive used the M'audio 2496 card and it's great for the money... but its getting old now and other makes have caught up.

If I was to buy a budget soundcard now I would go for the Emu 0404 card (I still have one laying around as a spare which I wont part with).

The Emu does everything the Maudio card does but (imo) sounds a bit better, it also has onboard DSP effects/compressors/Parametric EQ which sound quite good.

The thing about the Emu is that the software mixer is very flexible and allows you to route lots of different software packages into each other without much fuss and also the DSP effects can be used as VST effects - I think you can get away with about 16 reverbs without using CPU power.

[adrian23]

i was a m-audio solo user for a very long time, and though their audio interface build quality is not bad, i got fed up with their lack of support - half a year into leopard and still no official drivers.
anyway, a few weeks ago i replace it, mainly because i need more ins/outs. initially i got the firestudio, which looks like a nice bargin. but i didn't like it. i can't really put my finger on what i disliked...it just wasn't my cup of tea so i returned it the next day.
to make a long story short. i eventually picked up the apogee ensemble. though expensive as shit, i got it for 1450, about twice the price of presonus firestudio. i also looked at rme fireface, but that was only 50 less then ensemble, and from what i've read the apogee converters are a bit better.
so, i brought it home, plugged it in, and literally was BLOW away by the sound that thing produces. it makes the m-audio stuff sound so freaking cheap it's not even funny. i never realized that converest can make such a big differance. some ppl swear that their audio interface is one of the most important pieces of gear in their setup, and i'm one of them.