Quote:Imho the sound card is not that important.

In my experience it really depends on how you're using the sound card and your plug-ins (how many instances at one time/what type(s) of plugins used, etc).

In my experience the higher end sound cards usually have better sounding bundled plug-ins (although I don't always use them) and most often I use an external sound device that has nice preamps which you don't get with strictly an internal sound card.

If sound cards didn't matter, then why would so many companies offer so many tiers of both hardware and software? Can you get great audio out of a cheapo sound card? Maybe but it might take more work (or work-a-rounds) than if you had a more capable card.

That's my take anyway. :)