Well. The title says it all.
What's the most interesting pro sound card for those musicians willing to enter the digital audio world by building a virtual studio in their PCs? Signal quality, flexibility, scalability (if any), Linux ALSA compatibility... Just how important are all those points? What's the best balance among them?

You all profis are invited to contribute your two cents.

One question for starters: taking into account the powerhorse of nowadays CPUs, is there any sound card that concentrates in inputs/outputs/DACs/ADCS, while letting signal processing to the host CPU? (via algorithms implemented in software)
It would be ideal, since you already paid big bucks for that gorgeous Pentium IV, and it is not fun paying again for yet another expensive DSP.

Well, I'm sure you'll get quite a few opinions on this. I would just say that M-Audio has a very good reputation, and something in just about every price range. Probably depends on how "pro" you want to go

Edit: and I believe that there are Linux ALSA compatible drivers for at least some of their cards.

Well, if you're trying to build a little studio you will need Pro Tools. So a digidesign Mbox or 002 would be cool. They don't meet all your requirements though.

Tony

What kind of musician are you? Style, etc?

You don't need hefty DSPs for every kind of recording...

I am just a beginner. Rock/Pop/Techno mixed-up.

About Linux: what's better, Linux 2.4 with patches, or ASIO?
Does any of you know about the Agnula project? It's a Linux distribution only for audio creation.

Perhaps you wanna take a look at EMU 1212m.