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"So what you're saying then, if I got this right, is that the best audio system on the planet is the one that you have to write yourself? Awesome."

Yep. That's about right - I want a no-nonsense small and fast system on top of which additional layers can be built.

"Didn't say it was hard. Said no other OS is doing it. Your argument seems to be that it's possible to do something, therefore it's already been done."

ALL OTHER OSes DO THIS ALREADY!!!

In XP you either needed driver support (like in Creative drivers) or a special DirectShow filter.

On Linux you can use ALSA "delay line" plugin: http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/7391/print . Or you can use one of these plugins: http://plugin.org.uk/ladspa-swh/docs/ladspa-swh.html

Vista only adds a nice GUI for these settings. In fact, I'll probably add a GUI editor for delay lines to PulseAudio when I'll have some spare time.

"Show me another OS that, out of the box, has the same feature set that Vista has. Any linux distro. Any kernel. And I'll concede that Vista doesn't have the most advanced audio system. Until them blather on, but you're still wrong."

Well, show me at least one OS apart from Linux with PulseAudio which allows me to broadcast hi-def 24-bit music over the LAN with autodetection based on ZeroConf and I'll concede that Linux doesn't have the most advanced audio system. Until them blather on, but you're still wrong.

Do you really need anything else?

umm, yes:

audacity for linux, mac or win32.

be sure to check out the plug-ins.

I've had a pretty good run using Ardour, JACK, JAMIN and occasionally JACK Timemachine on an Athlon 2800+ with 256 MB of memory.

The most expensive piece of sound equipment seems to be the AD/DA converters (whether on or off board). I ended up with an RME Hamerfall 9652 (yes, the original one) and a Behringer Ultragain ADA-8000 (inexpensive at 230 USD). I also use a Behringer BCF-2000 for automation control, and a bunch of other rackmount processors. The sound is better than a studio I had recorded at a while back which used a Mackie D8B and a bunch of very expensive and fancy looking equipment.

I guess it depends what you want to get out of it. If you want to spend 30$ on a cheapie sound card, expect it to sound like that.... The audio *software* is available for Linux, so the only limitation is how much green you want to sink into your setup. (Hint, Behringer has a 30$ USB sound card available if you're looking to do recording "on the cheap" which would sound a bit better than an internal sound card, considering that you can move the AD/DA conversion process a bit further away from your machines' clock chips.)

Example:

Timemachine is a small JACK application that records the previous 10s of audio from any JACK input. There is absolutely nothing like this in any commerical audio software AFAIK, and certainly nothing with the cross-app flexibility of a JACK-based application.

What you want is a compressor. Audacity (GPL software for Linux, Mac, Windows) includes a simple built-in compressor, and also works with compressor plug-ins like SC4 by Steve Harris. (You can get SC4 by installing the swh-plugins collection on Linux or Unix; it's also included with the Windows version of Audacity).

additionally, you might be interested in the many hundreds of LADSPA plugins

One of the advantages of 1.2 over 1.0 is that it finally supports LADSPA plugins.

I can recommend the freely-available plugin packs, such as Computer Music Toolkit (It has Dynamic Sledgehammer, what the hell else you need? =) and Steve Harris' Plugins (Likewise one can't live without Barry's Satan Maximizer =)

In Debian, just try apt-get install blop cmt tap-plugins swh-plugins and blammo, you have tons of cool plugins that work out of box in Ardour, Audacity and Sweep...

The standard for effects on linux is LADSPA. Think of it as a VST done right (the API is ultra clean), but currently without a GUI standard so the GUIs will be not that pretty but useable nonetheless. They are of course useable with ARDOUR.
As concerns simple (and not so simple) GPLed effects, the most important source for them is swh plugins. They were either programmed or compiled by steve harris, and can be found at http://plugin.org.uk . Available effects (from a total of 70 !) are for example :
flanger, crossover distorsion, gate, multivoice chorus, three compressors ...

As one of the authors of Audacity, I'm glad to hear you like it! Re: effects, our development version allows you to use LADSPA plugins, giving you access to Steve Harris's excellent plugin collection.