[raffaella]

I want to use DAW software for special effects, not commercial production, so audiophile playback quality is crucial for me-as it THE most transparent pitch reduction/time expansion I can afford. Lots of DAW users still think that Serato PnT still sounds the best-better than Wavelab's 7's DIRAC and maybe even better than TimeFactory, since both are Stephan Bernsee creations. I can’t go with TimeFactory anyway as there’s only a Mac OS version and I've sunk $$$ into Windows gear. So if I buy Serato, Avid makes us Windows users buy m-powered ProTools-AND an M-Audio 2496 card to run it. But I strongly suspect that the Asus Xonar STX Essence card I want to buy has far better than sound than the M-Audio 2496 pci card. See the review on this card at http://www.stereophile.com/category/...audio-reviews/. So since M-powered PT won’t run without M-audio hardware, is there any way that I can have both soundcards installed in my desktop pc (or the Xonar card and a USB or Firewire external m-audio interface) and get good quality ProTools audio out of the Xonar card? If yes, please explain how to do this. Thanks.