I am going to upgrade my soundcard and I have about $200 to spend. I needt something that will enable me to make quality recordings in WAV and MP3 format. The recordings I am going to make will be used to make demos and to post on mix hosting sites. I also will need a sound card capable of streaming on an internet radio station (128kps). I use the Audacity recording software. From what I have found it seems like the Delta 66 is a good option at my price point of $200. Then again, I am posting here because I am still new at this and there is a lot I do not know about. The Delta 66 has digital I/O that would work with my mixer so I could record digitally. Has anyone used this card or something similar? Is there another DJ industry standard that I should be looking at if I am going to spend $200? I would appreciate any advice here before I go out and buy one. Thanks in advance and have fun mixing!

Hey man, at that price point the pickings are slim, and quality will bo O.K. But the good thing is you really don't need great quality converters to do what your doing. I haven't use this quite yet as my guy who sets me up hasn't had one in stock yet, but novation nio fits your budget and sound like a great unit.
http://www.novationmusic.com/
CHeck out the link. Delta is not a bad choice either. Hope that helps

Should I be looking at a more expensive card? I thought $200 was enough but maybe I should increase my budget to $400 or $500? Does anyone have any suggestions if I do that? I am thinking about buying a firewire capable card so that my usb wont get clogged up with extra traffic.

FW FTW! It's awesome and you will never have problems ... but of course, if you don't have FW, you're SOL.

The more you spend, the better the quality of the A/D converters, the more features you'll have as well as having more ins/outs.

Personally, I love my M-Audio FW-410, it's done me well for years. The only thing I would want over it is more inputs... and the MOTU Ultralite is what I'd buy (but it's significantly more than you're looking to spend).

I agree the Motu stuff is pretty good. I think it may be overkill for what your doing, don't think you need that many inputs. Thye delta stuff is not bad either, the model is a little older so not sure how frequently they would update drivers. Some to consider is and this is geared more towards dj/remixer is the native instrument Audio Kontrol. From what it seems you only need 2 in(stereo). So this works, plus you have midi if you ever decided to grow on the production side of things.

Focusrite Saffire, I've read really good reviews on this unit, closer to the MOtu as far as inputs but half the price.

If you spend a little more look at the mbox 2 mini. You get the pro tools software. I personally have a digi002 but am making the switch to an RME or Apogee.

As I said look at that NIO unit.

As far as USB and FW. For what your doing USB is going to be fine. If you were tracking more than 6 channels then I would say go with FW,but your not. Check sound on sound magazine, they have good reviews.

The Delta 2496 / 66 and 1010 are all basically the same card. Generally good recording quality across all three with a few exceptions. Balanced inputs and outputs. IIRC, the 66 and 1010 both have external breakout boxes which support balanced input and outout.

If you're looking for truly high quality recording I suggest looking at Lynx cards. If you can find a LynxONE on ebay you'll be set. These are the same cards that many professional studios as well as radio stations use. RME also makes very nice cards.

My roommate recently installed an ESI card in a club's LED driver PC for sound sampling. Never got a chance to test it out my self but I guess it's got some really good specs, fast ASIO and clean input and output.

Also - One thing to keep in mind, Generally for recording, an external card with A/D D/A conversion built into a breakout box is going to give you a cleaner sound. This is because you tend to get a lot of EM and RF noise in side a PC.

One last thing to consider - There are some cards which provide excellent audio clarity with very poor ASIO performance. You should consider this, if you ever plan to use this card to process VSTi data, etc.

-faber

I purchase the Delta 2496 last year and i'm pretty happy with my purchase but i do agree more input may be needed in the near future.

My biggest gripe with that card is the fact that the inputs and outputs are crappy RCA connections and thus unbalanced. Which means you end up with a lot more noise.