Hi cchallum. Good advice from Gary (as always) about the M-Audio 2496. Like Robh, I have one (in my backup machine). No problems; it just works.

Interesting aside: I went to my regional Guitar Center last week to get another one. They do not stock ANY internal soundcards now! It's all online orders only.

There is a purist school of thought that external break-out boxes serve to get the sound out of a very electrically-noisy environment - the inside of your PC - but certainly, current internal soundcards have ridiculously low noise levels.

One question for Gary. I think he may have meant to say, if you have a PCIe slot (PCI express), get a card for that. I'm pretty sure that's the form the M-Audio card comes in now. It is very likely your new PC will have a few PCIe slots, but maybe only one or two (older) PCI slots.

Last, I know some here get solid results with Behringer mixers, and that's great. All I can say is, in my experience, they are noisier than Mackie mixers, which I use now. It was a noticeable difference on recordings. Or maybe my Behringer was defective...

BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.