Hello all,

I'm hoping someone could recommend a sound card for me. I'm building a system that has HD 7.1 sound on the motherboard, but I'm looking for a sound card that would better support producing and recording music at home. I'm certainly looking for better quality sound, and perhaps also hardware support to improve the system's performance during production or editing (and for thos wondering, I may play some games, like a flight simulator, but that is of minor importance, and I do not plan to hook this up as a home theatre system either). I'm looking to stay somewhere near the $100 mark in US dollars. Right now I'm considering either the HT Omega Striker 7.1 card, or the M-AUDIO Audiophile 2496. The home page for the Striker is http://www.htomega.com/striker.html and the home page for the Audiphile is http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Audiophile2496.html. I'll be installing Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit as the operating system, if that affects the recommendations. Any, by the way, I'm not wedded to the M-Audio or HT Omega brands; I'm open to whatever is best, near that price point. I ruled out the Sound Blaster and similar cards mainly because they appear to be more oriented to gaming, but I would reconsider them, if appropriate.

Thank you! Chuck