adimatis, the M-Audio Audiophile is somewhat better than the Soundblaster in areas such as dynamic range, signal to noise, distortion, etc.

There is nothing wrong with using Cubase SX as your host especially if you are going to produce midi sequences and then render to audio. For live performances I think forte Ensemble is significantly better. It allows you better overall control while at the same time has Audio Inputs for such things as distortion guitars or vocal harmonizers (which require midi control).

You can take a look at my software based arranger system by searching flr2003 and flr2004 on this forum.