other good soundcards?

[Gijs]

I'm getting pretty tired of the 'random behaviour' of the EWS64XL in my computer. Are there any soundcards on the market with comparable performance?
I've heard some good things about the Soundblaster Live. What features does this card have compared to the EWS64XL?

[philippz]

Hi Gijs,

you didn?t say exactly in which points your EWS 64 behaves randomly. If your one behaves like mine, you are having problems when you?re recording audio, espacially when you try to use the ASIO drivers.
In fact, the ASIO drivers aren?t very good (and that?s still polite) compared to what other companies do. That?s why I got an extra audio card so that I don?t have to use the EWS dirvers for audio anymore. But I still use the EWS 64 as a sampler and I like my Microwave very much.
That?s what I would recommend to you: get a new PCI audio card with a SPDIF input so you can connect your EWS to it without quality loss.
If you also want to get rid of the EWS 64 as a sampler you shouldn?t buy a Soundblaster as these cards aren?t very good too. Better get a very fast PCI audio card and a software sampler. But remeber that you will need a fast PC and lots of RAM for that. If you use the EWS, you don?t need more RAM and more CPU power.

Regards, Philipp