[Trevor]

"Les Cargill" wrote in message
...
Tomcee wrote:
Hello:
I need to upgrade my hardware (from an old Digital Audio labs EISA
board in a Win98 PC) to a Win8 machine with available PCI express
slots and USB ports.

As an aside, if you do this, you can (possibly)
make a Virtual Machine out of the old Win98 machine and run it on
the new Win8 machine.
You cannot access PCI nor EISA slots in the virtual machine.
I say "possibly" because Win98 may be harder to do than other choices.

My interest is in a high quality stereo interface - primarily for
archiving purposes.

Who is prominent who does this kind of work? Do what
they do.

I've assumed that a PCI type internal interface would achieve highest
quality, but I've 'heard' that there are some high-quality USB port
interfaces.


There are also sound modules with Firewire interfaces.

No matter what you do, you unfortunately have to pay attention to
things like the choice of chipsets on the PC side
for your chosen interface.

Also, PCI is not PCI Express. Become very familiar
with the differences. I don't know of any "soundcards"
that support PCIe. It is possible to adapt PCIe to PCI but it's
not pretty.

I would like to hear of others recent experiences and opinions of
hardware they have experience with.

Thank you in advance for your helpful advice,

My advice, buy one of the large number of USB devices available and steer
clear of Firewire, PCI, or PCIe only devices. The MOTU Firewire/USB hybrids
are my favourites, but may be more than you want. Plenty of cheaper high
quality 2 channel USB devices these days though.

Trevor.