With all due respect, Kingfrog, the original poster laid down a bunch of criteria. Hence, he was not asking all comers for what works for THEM (unless it fit the criteria, which, as cost was 'very important' to him, a T3 is NOT what he wants!).

He was asking which would work for HIM under those criteria. I simply asked for more info, as it wasn't possible to help HIM without it, IMO.

'Rational' input isn't ALWAYS what we use... how many of us are that rational, anyway?

BTW, the reason most recording is done at 24bit these days is that it gives FAR more detail to the plug-ins, and digital processors especially compressors and EQ's to work with BEFORE the song is dithered (NOT truncated) down to 16bit. The differences are easily heard, and cumulative. If you process a track with several different things, then mix and master (more processing), working with 24bit files will give you a much better end result.

Working with much higher sample RATES, OTOH, 96kHz and especially super high ones like 192kHz, is definitely more taxing to the computer and harder to discern (unless you are using boutique stuff in your entire chain, probably unlikely). But a move to 24bit (and everything but really budget audio interfaces handle that easily) will make a BIG difference...

Trust me, I'm a doctor...

Just remember, somebody with a Tascam Portastudio could make exactly the same point about YOUR recording rig... i.e., why even bother with digital and 16 bit? It's all about the song, not some fancy recording gear

[This message has been edited by Diki (edited 12-01-2008).]