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I'm not sure what some of you guys are on about...
A converter's clock is what tells it when to "take" a sample of the amplitude as well as when to playback a given sample.
Processes that occur "in the box" (host computer) are not realtime processes, in the sense that they need not remain carefully timed.
If, for instance, you are bouncing tracks inside the computer (as opposed to mixing them together outside the box and bringing them back in) this is a process which is completely independent of your converters. They might as well be turned off.
When your AD converter sends audio data over a Firewire, USB, or PCI bus it is an asynchronous transmission -- unlike when we daisychain multiple converters and they must remain tightly synchronized for proper operation. Ditto for when your computer sends audio data back to the DA. (Firewire can be isochronous, as well, but the data streams are not synchronized, per se, AIUI.)
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