soundcard recommendations

Looks like I'm going to be upgrading my computer in a few months. I
need some recommendations about a decent sound card. (IBM PC,
hopefully around 2 or so GHZ...)

Any suggestions I can start thinking about would be greatly
appreciated...

Thanks!

J. Pehrson

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Joseph Pehrson" <jpehrson@r...> wrote:
> Looks like I'm going to be upgrading my computer in a few months. I
> need some recommendations about a decent sound card. (IBM PC,
> hopefully around 2 or so GHZ...)

1. What do you want your sound card to do?

2. Do NOT get a CPU that is any less than 2.5 ghz.

Cheers,
Jon

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Jon Szanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:

/metatuning/topicId_5980.html#5997

> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Joseph Pehrson" <jpehrson@r...>
wrote:
> > Looks like I'm going to be upgrading my computer in a few
months. I
> > need some recommendations about a decent sound card. (IBM PC,
> > hopefully around 2 or so GHZ...)
>
> 1. What do you want your sound card to do?
>
> 2. Do NOT get a CPU that is any less than 2.5 ghz.
>
> Cheers,
> Jon

***Thanks, Jon, for getting back on this. Yes, of course, I'm
expecting to get a computer that is 2.5 ghz at least. Maybe around
Santa time...

In any case, one of the *main* things I want to do, of course, is run
Sibelius, and since I made this post I got the following response
from them:

[Daniel from Sibelius:]

It depends on whether you only want a better soundcard for use with
Sibelius, or whether you'll also be using other programs. If you only
need it for Sibelius, then any soundcard with good ASIO drivers would
be fine. We've used the M-Audio Audiophile 2496, the Waveterminal
192L, and even the Soundblaster Live! and Audigy cards work just
fine, provided you get ASIO drivers for them.

There may also be a longer list of recommended soundcards at Native
Instruments's web site (www.native-instruments.com); the list of
soundcards recommended for use with Kontakt applies equally to the
Kontakt Player bundled with Sibelius.

ASIO is a special kind of low-latency audio protocol designed by
Steinberg (www.steinberg.de). High-end audio cards tend to come with
ASIO drivers by default, but soundcards such as Create SoundBlaster
Audigies (is that the plural of Audigy, I wonder?) don't -- you may
be able to get ASIO drivers either from Steinberg or from the
soundcard manufacturer.

I should point out that ASIO is not *necessary* to use the Kontakt
Player; any good soundcard that fully supports standard DirectSound
operations will do, but ASIO is the best way to ensure low latency.

[Somebody else]
May I recommend the following excellent site, which includes free
(unless you donate) ASIO driver downloads, plus treasure troves of
information, links, patents, etc. etc.? Cheers from sunny New South
Wales.
www.kxproject.com

***So actually, Jon, I think I'm going to have to go this ASIO route
and I think I would rather get an "upscale" card that already has
this stuff in it. Hopefully, I'll only be spending $200-$300 for
this...

Daniel of Sibelius mentions *these*:

M-Audio Audiophile 2496, the Waveterminal 192L, and even the
Soundblaster Live! and Audigy cards

Any comments??

I guess besides Sibelius, I would like to maybe graduate to and learn
to use SONAR and then, gradually when I figure out how to do it,
start to migrate toward softsynths, obviously the ones with
microtonal potential.

I might not be doing that *right away* but it would be nice to get a
machine and sound card that could go with me along that route as I,
hopefully, travel it.

I've had my present machine for at least *three* years now...
centuries for this kind of equipment. Even my "computer friend-guru"
who helps me with some of my hardware and software stuff knows I will
soon desperately need an upgrade.

Thanks, Jon (and any other contributors...) It's good to
start "thinking ahead" on this...

Joe P.