Looking for a good soundcard

Hi everyone :)

I'm looking to buy a good sound card to record at home, I presently have a Sound blaster audigy 2 which is more for video games than recording.

If any of you have good advice on this, I would be glad to hear it :)
Oh yeah, I don't to pay more than 250$

Hey...I used to use an Audigy 2 as well, replaced it last year with An ESI Maya 44E...it has 2 inputs...One can be set for a direct guitar in with the correct impedance and the other input can be set for a mic in and has a built in pre amp and also phantom power built in...both inputs can also be set to line in...

I love this card and would highly recommend it...Mine cost around £100 so that should be within your budget...

http://www.esi-audio.com/products/maya44e/

Forgot to mention, the 44e is PCIE, if you only have PCI check out the 44, same card but for PCI slots.

http://www.esi-audio.com/products/maya44/

Thx for the info Marshallmk1. I went on the link you provided below and this card is interesting. The price would be around 150$ here in Canada, so I find it really afordable.

Can you plug in a bass guitar in that card ?

I looked at a lot of cards in that price range and for me it was the best cos of the direct guitar in and the mic pre amp...

Yes it will handle bass really well...I use my bass through this card...there is a pre amp on the guitar input so you can boost the input for the lower level bass signal...

I noticed straight away how much better this card is than the audigy...guitar and bass sound better and even playing back mp3's...I heard a difference straight away...

The only thing that might put people off is that it doesn't come with fancy software for multimedia use like eax and cmss like the audigy...The Maya just has a really simple easy to use mixer console...you can obviously still use it as a normal pc sound card but what it does best is HQ recording and playback at low latency...

Having had one for a year now I can't think of something else I would swap it for...!!!

One thing I would say is that if you use DAW like Sonar and set it to record at 96Khz then shut it down and try to play an mp3 or listen to something on youtube or whatever then you wont get any sound...you need to re boot the pc and the card will automatically reset to 44.1Khz and you get your sound back...it's the only drawback but it wouldn't put me off buying the card...

Hope this helps...
Craig

that sure help :)