[LAU] latency and hardware monitoring

While I'm posting newbie questions... The Multiface has its own hardware monitoring, its own headphone output, and its own very thorough digital mixer with all kinds of internal routing options, all configurable from the HDSPmixer program in Linux. With this being true... ...does latency even matter? Is there any reason I need to shoot for low latency at all if the card is providing its own monitoring functions in hardware? Is there any other benefit in Ardour, Linuxsampler, or anywhere else really, to having <5ms latency in Jack? Just wondering...I've been seeing a lot of posts online implying that it's just a matter of making laying down new tracks over existing material seem less lagged. If that's all it is, I'd imagine the system could breathe a bit easier with less aggressive settings. -- + Brent A. Busby + "We've all heard that a million monkeys + UNIX Systems Admin + banging on a million typewriters will + University of Chicago + eventually reproduce the entire works of + Physical Sciences Div. + Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, + James Franck Institute + we know this is not true." -Robert Wilensky