Ehart, I use the DAL Card Deluxe and I only do vinyl restoration. I do not use it for any other purpose, except for playing occasional audio files on the web. Here's my take on your questions. Bear in mind that there will be a lot of different opinions and you will just have to listen to all sides and make up your own mind.
1. If you are just going to copy to digital without fiddling with the file, and for the purpose of cutting redbook cd's (ie, 16/44) I doubt you will hear a difference. It might be argued that the algorithm for digitizing at 24/96 and then downsampling/dithering to 16/44 gives a better digital representation than going straight to 16/44 but I do not hear the difference. However, you may want the 24/96 file to play direct to your stereo (it sounds great) and you may also want it if and when the software is available to convert a 24/96 wav file to DVD-A. That would be real cool!
2. The more expensive cards are not more difficult to use and offer more editing capability. Having said that, you should know that the editing time for 24/96 files is significantly longer than for 16/44. I have a 1.3Ghz Pentium IV with 256Mb ram and it takes about 15 minutes to depop 60 minutes of music in 24/96. It only takes about 1 minute or less to do the same task in 16/44. 60 minutes of music will take about 520Mb of disc space at 16/44 compared to about 1.7Gb at 24/96.
3. I believe SPDIF stands for "Sony Philips Digital InterFace", or something like that. You certainly do not need it if copying vinyl (you will use an analog input) and you also won't need it to copy 16/44 to 16/44. You would be better off copying to your hard drive first using your cdr or another cd drive and then copying to the burner. Many will argue that the computer cd drive is sub-optimal. I disagree. In any event, SPDIF is only useful if you want to copy from a stereo cd transport into your computer (and your transport has SPDIF.)
4. Some of the standalones work fine (check out the HHB). The downside is lack of control. With a standalone, you cannot later break up the file into separate tracks and you cannot do any audio cleanup.
5. I have a DAL Card Deluxe and I am very happy with it. I have also tried the Soundblaster Audigy which was not nearly as nice. I have not tried the others so I cannot compare it to those. I do know that DAL has a 30 day money back guaranty.
good luck and feel free to contact me if you have any further questions.
