On Thu, 2006-05-18 at 06:40 +0100, jan wrote: > No, not a laptop. Firewire has been recommended to me by several people > who ought to know about these things (musicians); the main reason being > that while a pCI card may have all the functionality, it also has much > more of a tendency to pick up electrical noise from the computer. This you're "friends who ought to know more about these things" don't know enough. consumer audio devices may (and do) suffer from this, but serious pro/pro-sumer devices do not. its not even required that the analog i/o be outside the box - lots of people love the iZ RADAR system and it puts all of its converters *inside* a 4U chassis with a regular intel-based computer. of course, iZ does know a bit about high end power regulation and converter clock coupling :) > Also, of course, a box with firewire would be a lot easier to carry > around and share; and even connect to a laptop in an emergency. this is true.