A more specific question about my sound card/interface choice

[Rominemusic]

Hey again,

I have read up on the subject a little (a lot of tweakheadz guide's as per suggestion) and wanted to ask a specific question. I own a Behringer europower PMH2000 powered mixer with 8 channels/pre amps and a Creative sound card. I was thinking of springing for an Emu 1616M PCIe card, which has two preamps for around $450. My question is, using low end mics (SM57 and SM58), would I be just as well of using the Behringer powered mixer preamps and just getting a $100 M-audio 2496 sound card? Sorry if this is an unanswerable or redundant question, but I would at least would like your opinions or if I'm completely off base with the question. Thanks in advance!

 

[Washburn100]

How many chanels do you need to use at one time? The EMU 1616M is an awesome card/interface and includes patchmix which is a software mixer. Going into the pre's on this would be superior to the Behringer into another card.

It all depends on how you record and how many chanels you need at a time.

 

[Rominemusic]

Well, eventually I would like to record quite a few channels. At a later date, I was looking at purchasing something along the lines of the Mackie Onyx 1640i... but this would be sometime in the semi-distant future. I was really more particularly interested in how much recording quality difference I would find between the two options mentioned. Thanks for your reply Any other advise/opinions/suggestions are very welcome.

 

[sonicpsyops]

Not that I'm trying to steer you from any decision that you have already made but one thing about soundcards that you should keep in mind is that they maintain updated drivers. Some manufacturers don't and that's going to cause you problems in the future with upgrades and plug-ins and such. I use RME and have never had a problem but I'm a heavy sample library user.