STAM, I haven't put the Audigy 2Z Platium through a full test for audio. In general, it seems like a very good soundcard for its price. The drivers are stable and you can get the latency down to arround 10ms and less. So if you want to use just one card for all things the Audigy is as good as any.

But....

It will always fall short of the so called professional cards in the areas of signal to noise, dynamic range, distortion, etc.

I decided to use the Audigy instead of mic preamps and USB Midi converters. It costs about the same and there is less clutter.

After saying all this the Audigy 2Z Platium is an around good soundcard.