if your trying to open a commercial studio you have to have PT IMHO....if your tryna to your own music then I'd say cakewalk since its cheaper. They both pretty much do the same thing. Just pro tools is the industry standard....and any musician that is engineering illiterate is gonna ask if...
If I had the processing power, DAC's weren't limited to 48Khz(I mix OTB) and to a lesser extent storage space I'd do 96khz, I don't know if its cuz plug-ins sound better or if 96Khz just sound better then 44.1, but it does... its not a "o shit 96 sounds much better" but things just seem smoother...
after being a gearslutz for a few years I've realized the expectation(especially if you peruse internet forums) waaaaayyyyyy exceeds the reality.
But you should be able to notice improvements, but it won't be....ugghhhh that audiophile is crap how could I ever record with such a peice.
edit: I...
Yes its called the AweSUM DAWsum CD. This cd displays one song with all faders and unity no panning, just bounced to 2 track using varioius daws, and mixers digital and analog.
to do that it would probably add way more then 25 bux more... I remember fletcher posting that it costs about 20K to get your PSU to pass inspection or something or other. I dunno about the balancing part but its not a big deal just buy an unbalanced patchbay and connect your RNC's/RNLA's to that.