Hello,
I am an owner of a simple and cheap home studio and I wish to share my problem with your company: I bought a new PC, but my old trustworthy Audiophile 2496 low-latency sound card doesn't work with it because it needs a PCI slot. I wanted to buy a similar simple low-latency sound card for the new PCIe slot, but low-latency sound cards are not manufactured any more! All companies like ESI and M-Audio stopped manufacturing simple low-latency cards and started manufacturing high-latency USB audio interfaces. Your company still produce low-latency sound cards, buy they have a lot of features that are not necessary in a simple home studio. Home musicians like me are not interested to pay extra $500 or more for multiple unnecessary features. We need one stereo in/out and one MIDI in/out. That's all! A lot of home musicians experience the same problem: they need a 'simple' low-latency card for modern computers with PCIe interface. More than that, a lot of conventional audiophiles need such simple cards: they don't like that external box that requires a special place to put it on. You could make good money if you would fill this empty niche on the audio market. Every owner of old trustworthy Audiophile 2496 or Juli@ who upgrades his old computer will buy your card if it will be as simple and straightforward as his old card. We don't need built-in mic inputs or guitar inputs because we already own all that kind of hardware. We don't need a lot of inputs and outputs. We need a SIMPLE and reliable low-latency card. Look at internet forums: a lot of musicians are looking for a low-latency sound card and cannot find it because modern USB sound interfaces have enormous latencies. That foolish USB interfaces include a "direct monitoring" button to hear myself during the recording. But my old card allowed me to hear myself via all necessary VST effects and I enjoyed the sound. Now I hear the dry guitar sound and I don't hear the "distortion" effect during recording. As a result I record a crap! When I try to monitor my guitar with all effect plug-ins, I hear the sound with a noticeable delay, as if someone else playing the same melody 50 meters far from me. In fact I hear two sounds: first I hear the sound directly from my guitar, and then I hear a processed sound like a distorted echo. I become mad of that sound! I already bought a new PC, but I still use the old one because my old card works with it. I wish someone could hear my cry)))) I am near to buy a Mac mini because it includes a built-in low-latency sound card.