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
