There are a bunch of fairly high-end cards out now for the home studio
that support a more limited range of features but still do many tracks
of simultaneous 24-bit, 96Khz audio with excellent S/N, the Echo
Darla-24 comes to mind (lacks optical and XLR, retail $399), and they
and others have new cards planned. 

There are some good sound card tests at
http://www.pcavtech.com/soundcards/index.htm 

According to these benchmarks, the cards designed for gaming do not
measure up to the quality of those made for home studio use, which
isn't too surprising IMO. I don't know if any of the non-gaming cards
is supported on NetBSD. I'd be happy if I could do audio work on my
NetBSD box, but for the time being I'll stick with my mac for that and
for video editing.

-Zach Fine
czyz@serv.net

>>>>> "Thomas" == Thomas Michael Wanka <Tom@Wanka.at> writes:

    Thomas> On 7 Mar 2001, at 21:40, Jeremy C. Reed wrote:

    >> What are some examples of "high-end" sound cards?

    Thomas> The so-called "high end" soundcards I have seen seem to
    Thomas> require:
    Thomas> extensive shielding, multiple I/O: digital input output as
    Thomas> plastic, glass and copper, analog usually with XLR than
    Thomas> cinch,
    Thomas> and the cards will usually cost more than USD 700,--.