We all have different reasons for choosing a particular sound card. In broadcasting or streaming I assume that reliable and predictable behavior is a key factor. You don't want a card that causes the computer to get hung-up and turning comatose.
If recording live musicians, you want a quality card that creates an original digital file that is true and faithful. If the original digitizing process is flawed, no processor, no editor, no codec, no sound card can ever cure the flaw.
The fact that this Marian Trace cards can apparently play nice with balanced ins and outs is a good feature.
Let me throw this one brain-teaser your way. Whether you create original files via live recording, or you rip files from existing CDs, or you simply buy a hard drive already filled with music someone else has collected, processed and edited, you eventually would find yourself streaming audio material that lives on your hard drive. At this point I would debate that the quality of a sound card has nothing to contribute and detract from your streaming process. In fact, though I have not operated a streaming source, I think you could set up a computer to do your streaming that did not have a sound card installed. The sound card in our computers comes into play when we need to take some analog material and digitize it so it goes onto our hard drive, or when we have digital material either coming from our own hard drive and from some Internet stream that we want to convert into analog signal so our speakers or headphones can reproduce the sound.
I think the codecs and protcols (mp3, aac, etc) make or break a streaming operation. I take recordings of live speech and "process" these recordings for podcasting. The originals have a lot of dynamic range, which is fine for the live audience in the room at the time, but if you are listening to a CD in your car or and mp3 player while walking or jogging, it is a good thing if the dynamic range is made much narrower. That editing process is where perfectly delightful audio material suddenly becomes jagged, harsh, hollow or otherwise degraded. And the soundcard is not the culprit. The content becomes the victim of computer processes that equalize, normalize, denoise, compress, limit and de-ess the original recording. And whether I have a $15 bargain sound card from the big box store, or a $1,500 boutique soundcard with gold plated jacks and plugs has little to do with the sound of the processed material. The editing software is VERY CRITICAL to process.
But like you, I want the very best card my budget will permit! Thanks for the heads-up on the Marian Trace cards.
