I've been using Powertracks Pro 12 for about a year now and was wondering if I should step up and pick up a real sound card. The onboard sound is the infamous Realtek alc888s and I'm using Vista Home Premium 32 bit with many performance tweaks, so ASIO4ALL is running okay with about 10ms latency. I've been using 16bit/44.1K and played around a little with 48K and 96K using the line in input.
I've seen a few discussions and the m-audio 2496 and 1010lt look like good cards. Does anyone have any thoughts on these or any other cards that will work and will I really notice 24bit recording differences? Do both of these cards have the same performance characteristics but differ only with the number of inputs? the 1010lt claims zero latency monitoring - is that also true of the 2496? Isn't it true I would need to later dither back to 44.1K/16bit for a CD recording? I'm hoping some of you may be able to guide me. I do mostly solo recording and woudn't mind midi on the card too, but I already have a midisport 1x1. Will a real sound card "WOW" me???