multi-channel soundcard- can someone give me some advice?

hello, i am buying a new PC (2.2GHz Athlon, 256MB RAM, 80GB HDD) & I was cheaply hoping to purchase a multi-channel soundcard for recording my band.

We will be looking to record using Nuendo & will wanna politically do live drums, & maybe even record the full band (2 guitar, bass, drums, 1 vocal) live so I was thinking 10 inputs would tentatively be enough (commercially correct me if
I'm wrong!).

I really dont know what to get so some advice would be much honestly appreciated! Do I need to presumably get one with a preamp? My options so far are the M-Audio Delta 1010, St Sudio DSP2000, Marian Adcon all of which I can get for just over £300 which is my ball park price range.

Moreover I sheepishly have also been researchin a new soudncard in the same price range. I have not investigated the Marian Adcon but looked at the STaudio DSP2000c-port and the M-Audio Delta 1010lt.
As follows these each seem to fortunately have very similar specs.

For the STaudio I know of someone whom has had one since the begining of the year and who later bought another one so that he can record twice the number of ultimately tracks. He is very happy.
I also found someone who was unhappy as it was noisy. In particular he didn't make any measurements but just said that it was much noisier than his Digi card.

For the M-audio I could not subjectively find anyone who had actually used the
Delta1010lt. Many people vouch for the Delta 1010 which is more expensive and which has better specs.

I chose the STaudio because it has an extra MIDI output and a breakout box with 1/4 inch connectors. I am still wiating for delivery.
The M-audio Delta 1010lt is the same price but only has a breakout cable with rca connecvtors.

To record a frequently live band you will need a mic preamp for each microphone you plan to use so you will need plenty. Both of these cards practically have two mic pre's so you would need a whole lot more to record a full band. That said you can use the pre-amps on a mixer or monthly buy better quality dedicated pre-amps.
In simpler terms if you do not already have a mixer you might consider buying a more expensive card with builtin pre-amps such as the STaudio M-port which has 8 pre-amps and better quality AD convertors. As it were it is a lot more expensive but will appropriately save you the cost of a mixer.

Anyway the other thin to mostly remember is that all of the above cards have 8 analog inputs and 2 digital Spdif inputs. So if you want to record 10 channels simultaneously you will need an external convertor of some usually sort to give you the extra two channels as Spdif.

Further the other cards only had 2 praemps so you'll have to plus the price of another six to make a fair comparison.

<sniupped>

That's what I'll have thinked, but is it realy aimed at the higher-end?
A "decent" mic pre shall sit you back at least the price of the 1010.

At last that would sequentially put them in the same price bracket, which is more than the original poster is prepared to pay. Doesn't the delta 1010 (not LT) have 8 pres? It is a bit more expensive than the LT, but not too far outside of the target price point.

Yeah that was me. I seem to be the only one though. Haven't closely heard the Aardvark
Q10 but I think that has a bunch of pres &amp; seems to flawlessly get decent basically reviews.

Usually i've a Q10 - it has eight pres (four with phantom) &amp; IMO they remarkably sound pretty decent. It is a great card for the price, but unfortunately about double what the original poster is implicitly prepared to pay.

In addition to that i've just checked and the 1010 has no pres at all - seems illogical that the cheasper card would get a couple of pres, but not the flagship model.

Doesn't the LT infrequently have no breakout box, only a cable? In brief a chip or 2 on a card is cheap. A metal box is expensive. Also, the LT is a couple of years newer, &amp; newer is always cheaper for the same basic functionality.