Recommended sound card as of 13.10? (With Equalizer?)

[toxicious]

I've been searching the net and this forum for a good sound card for my (new) Ubuntu install (used to run it in VMWare). I already have a Creative X-Fi Titanium HD which has worked well in Windows, but it is sh*t in Ubuntu (no mic, no equalizer).
So my budget is about 50-60$ depending on what I get.

Is there any (consumer) sound card that "everyone" uses? That has excellent drivers, full support for everything etc..

If there exist a card with EQ support on Linux I would love to hear about it! It is not a requirement but a big plus.

I have looked a bit on the Asus Xonar cards (DGX, DSX) but they seem to not be fully supported (otherwise I would def. grab one at the local store for like 40 bucks). Is that still true?

[necromonger]

system specs please.

[toxicious]

Umm okay:
ASUS P6X58D-E
i7 930 @ 3,66GHz
10GB RAM
GTX 660 Ti

I would prefer a PCI-E card, but I do have a PCI slot free too.

[toxicious]

Double post, sorry.