Hi i've been in the industry for some while. Here are some thougths on
functionability of the card from me..


I saw that the possible target development sections included
Audio effects and delays
Equalizers (or digital audio filters of any type)
Synthesizers/samplers
Studio mastering
-these sections can be reduced into one; MULTI PLATFORM NATIVE
PLUGIN SUPPORT


Considering the industry mainly uses Apple G5 as DAW;
It would be great if it could wrap multiple platform native plugins such
as PC VST/directX plugins aswell as MAC RTAS and TDM plugins for
maximal compatibility no matter PC or MAC. This would maby even make
it possible to cross native plugins with different platforms. - VERY
requested since plugin availability often varies on different platforms.


Another thing is processing power..
most DSP accelerators on the market are growing old considering the
new dual core/hyper threading technology on computer CPUs available.
wich gives exponential performance.
- a hint would be to use dual core technology on the DSP it self..?
Choise of chips would be a good idea to leave until pre production to
remain state of the art.


{
Deriving DSP power from the computer CPU is not an option:)

unwanted anomalies of DSP are dropouts. that happens when
processing power is exceeded. A holy grail of dsp processing would be a
DSP limiter/redistributor, a DSP that can never be exceeded at cost of
let's say redistributing additional processing to an additional Audio DSP
Accelerator..

Or compromising computer CPU usage.

Agressive contradiction:)
}


Another essential in audio engineering is latency.
The audio interface should have good measurements in processing
power versus how long time the signal is processed.

a good feature would be direct monitoring (bypassing ASIO loop.)


you can't buid a PRO card without adding PRO functions such as
AES/EBU, Wordclock i/o, Apogee(R) AD/DA converters (with dithering
capabilities),
some of the functions however may be modulized and sold separately as
card addons.



To sum it all up:
---------------
All the requested features will maby make the card expensive to build,
compromises maby are made.

As rule compromises should only affect prices to hold them down, never
audio quality or functionability.

Do it once do it right, if you make it the best card on the market it
won't matter how expensive it will be because all studios in the world
will want one. (With the appropriate marketing.)


Best regards- Kristian Vanhanen