The reason why Pro Tools is the "standard" is because as you know they were one of the first to mass market a computer hosted hard disk system back in the mid to late 80s...money rolled in and the marketing power machine known as Digidesign was created... they were acquired by Avid and it got worse...Digi is the Microsoft of the audio industry...and will try to crush anything it their path that they do not own... I know this because they tried to crush the AardSync II, but ultimately I would just flip on an HD (or worse TDM) system and switch between the internal clock and the AardSync II...and everyone in the room or store would immediately notice the improvement that the AardSync II made.
OT.. Igor Levin, who I used to work for...creator of the AardSync II has a new line of Clocks out.. check them out at
www.antelopeaudio.com The early reviews are more favourable to the Big Ben.
Plugs aside...
Jason states the absolute truth about PT compatibility with those sound cards... the MBox is a great deal as he noted.