Extigy vs. Audigy 2 ZS Platinum

I currently own an Extigy and love the flexibility of an external sound card. However, the product has been downright painful to own. Every time the power flickers or anyone sneezes I have to uninstall and reinstall the drivers for it. Which requires 2-3 reboots. Now if I'm in the middle of something during bad weather, I usually have to spend more time rebooting to get the card to work again than actually using it.
Most recently I've formatted my hard-dri've and have since been having problems with the drivers. When I install them and reboot the computer becomes unresponsi've and I am forced to reboot in safe mode and use a restore point prior to the installation in order to regain the use of my (soundless) computer.
Also, for whatever reason, USB bandwidth is in short supply with my machine since I have a number of USB devices installed. Sometimes if they're all acti've at the same time I'll get a 'USB bandwidth exceeded' msg and my Extigy stops working (have to uninstall/reinstall drivers to get it back).
I have recently started wondering if there was another option that would give me the stability I'm looking for as well as the flexibility that I love about the external dri've. I have come across the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro. At a glance it looks to be perfect. It has an internal card which gives the impression of greater stability. It has an external 'command center' that does not appear to be connected with USB. It has all the features as the Extigy. Upon further research however it seems like it is a product that is either loved or hated.
If I were to purchase the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro, would I be running into the same poor connectivity, drivers, and general problems that have been plaguing me with the Extigy?
Any comments would be appreciated.
Thank you

I guess I should have asked more specific questions :P
My main concern is will I have the same problems with having to reinstall everything every time the power flickers? The USB bandwidth stuff is annoying but I can li've with it. I'm more or less looking for an upgrade that won't be quite as touchy as the extigy.
and just to confirm... There is no USB involved in the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro? (How does the external hub piece connect to the computer?)

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The BEST way to do this is to go to radio shack and buy two (yes 2) of their?XLR to /4" Impedence Matching Transformers, AND?one (yes )?dual /4" female TS (tip-sleeve) to single /4" male TRS (tip-ring-sleeve) "Y" cable. Unless your mixer also has /4" main outs as well as the XLR... then you can just use the Y cable and skip the transformers. Or you can use a /8" Y cable with the transformers (and stereo /4 to stereo /8 adapter) and go into the card's line in jack on the actual card. Which is how I did it for a year or more untill i got a firewire recording interface (and it worked darn good too with my Soundcraft mixer and some good microphones). Either way,?you need the transformers for optimal results. The reason is the mixer's output impedence and level doesnt match that of the soundcard's input... mixer will likely overdri've the card, or the signal will sound weak or noisy.. The transformers?are cheap and are darn handy for loads of recording functions, and will provide the Audigy with exactly the type of signal it needs, properly transformed from the mixer. If you do this, you can record ALL of the mixer channels IN STEREO with all the panning, effects, and levels preserved. If you have multitracking software like Cubase or similar, you can even record an individual instrument (or even 2 at once, one panned left, one right... each assigned its own track in your software), come back on a new track (or pair of tracks), and record a different instrumet (or 2) and build a multitrack recording one performance at a time. PS:? you CANNOT just hardwire the mixer outputs and combine them into a single channel. A mixer is needed to properly combine?signals. Don't do it
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Message Edited by ElectricUrinal on -28-200708:0 AM

FAQ Comment on Audigy 2 Platinum Solution ID 1

First, I didn't see where else to put this. So...
I was experiencing noise and hiss problems with my 2400+, Audigy 2 Platinum card. Every time I moved the cursor, especially when editing sound files on on IE, there was a high pitched squeal which accompanied mouse movement. The FAQ suggested to completely uninstall the board, software, and drivers. With a bit of "hmm, can't do that and the like" the FAQ corrected the problem.
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Seems that nobody else has had this problem yet. In the meantime i have found out that just one channel is full of noise. Even under Ubuntu i have this noise so it's definitely the hardware. Must be something damaged indeed. the point is that i would like to know how can i avoid to happen this once again. In the last 25 years i am dealing with RCA Audio i connected the devices always not powering them off before. Seems that the problem is here. It could have shortcutted something inside the I/O box.

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