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Author Topic: using several USB DACs  (Read 8481 times)

tr402

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using several USB DACs
« on: September 26, 2013, 01:21:00 am »

Hi all , please advice is there any way to assign channels to several USB DACs? Not just Left and Right for Stereo, but like 7.1 DTS channels to the corresponding USB ASIO. Goal is to use four similar stereo USB DACs for 8 channels. If that is not available yet then how to order this feature probably? thanks
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pschelbert

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Re: using several USB DACs
« Reply #1 on: September 26, 2013, 04:37:06 pm »

the way to do it, is using a DAC with multiple channels. There are internal (soundcards)and external Audio-Interfaces (via USB, Firewire) connected which do that.

some which do external audio-interfaces (number of different products for each company):

    Focusrite (20)
    Behringer (16)
    Apogee (15)
    Yamaha (14)
    RME (12)
    M-Audio (11)
    MOTU (11)
    Native Instruments (11)
    Roland (10)
    Avid (9)

and many more....

some which do internal soundcard with 7.1:
creative
Asus
RME
steelseries
Sweex

etc....

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tr402

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Re: using several USB DACs
« Reply #2 on: September 27, 2013, 04:40:25 am »

thank you for reply but goal is to use several external high quality stereo DACs.
Alternative is to use Lynx AES16 card but i heard in several places USB converters works better..

the way to do it, is using a DAC with multiple channels. There are internal (soundcards)and external Audio-Interfaces (via USB, Firewire) connected which do that.

some which do external audio-interfaces (number of different products for each company):

    Focusrite (20)
    Behringer (16)
    Apogee (15)
    Yamaha (14)
    RME (12)
    M-Audio (11)
    MOTU (11)
    Native Instruments (11)
    Roland (10)
    Avid (9)

and many more....

some which do internal soundcard with 7.1:
creative
Asus
RME
steelseries
Sweex

etc....


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mwillems

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Re: using several USB DACs
« Reply #3 on: September 27, 2013, 09:18:10 am »

thank you for reply but goal is to use several external high quality stereo DACs.
Alternative is to use Lynx AES16 card but i heard in several places USB converters works better..


The problem with using multiple USB stereo DACs is that it's very challenging to keep them in sync.  DACs won't generally stay synced unless they have a way of accepting an external clock (SPDIF, etc.).  Most USB DACs are either asynchronous (meaning they use their own clock and ignore timing information from outside) or use an adaptive timing interface which only loosely couples the DACs output to the USB clock to reduce jitter.  In either of those two cases, two DACs will not sync up, and in my own experiments with two identical DACs, they will tend to slowly drift apart while music is playing.  

If you want to use two or more external DACs, you need to make sure that they have hardware support to sync all of them to each other (master slave) or the PC (either through SPDIF, or word clock, or something else).  In my experience, many DACs do not support external syncing, or if they do, they do so only through a SPDIF input, which would make it hard to "daisy chain" more than one additional stereo DAC unless you have lots of SPDIF outputs.  There may be a software solution at some point, but I'm unaware of anyone who managed to successfully do this with more than one USB interface without finding a hardware level solution to syncing the cards (i.e. feeding the second card off of an SPDIF output of the first card, rather than USB, etc.).

See this thread for a more detailed discussion: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=79067.0
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mojave

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Re: using several USB DACs
« Reply #4 on: September 27, 2013, 09:44:19 am »

You can use up to 3 Mytek Stereo192-DSD Dacs. Their ASIO driver will amalgamate them so that JRiver sees them as one 5.1 channel audio device.

If you use the Lynx AES16e, then you can use separate, identical two channel DAC's and shouldn't get any drift since the AES16e controls the clock over the AES output. It is easier, and cheaper, to use something like the Steinberg UR824 which is an 8 channel asynchronous USB audio device.

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mwillems

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Re: using several USB DACs
« Reply #5 on: September 27, 2013, 09:47:13 am »

You can use up to 3 Mytek Stereo192-DSD Dacs. Their ASIO driver will amalgamate them so that JRiver sees them as one 5.1 channel audio device.

If you use the Lynx AES16e, then you can use separate, identical two channel DAC's and shouldn't get any drift since the AES16e controls the clock over the AES output. It is easier, and cheaper, to use something like the Steinberg UR824 which is an 8 channel asynchronous USB audio device.

I'll second the Steinberg UR824, it's what I use myself, and it's great.
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tr402

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Re: using several USB DACs
« Reply #6 on: September 27, 2013, 01:48:21 pm »

thanks! thats clears things.
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Hometownwesty

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Re: using several USB DACs
« Reply #7 on: December 30, 2013, 04:57:24 am »

Even though this thread is dated, it just made me register as I'm planning to do a similar setup.

My plan was to use a "USBStreamer" and a bunch of "curryman dacs" sold by minidsp.com.

My understanding is that the streamer appears to the PC as one sound device (supplying 8 channels, so it should be configurable in MC) and can pass on the signal to various different DACs via I2S.

So with a total of four DACs I should be able to send 5.1 sound to my speaker amp and an additional stereo signal to my headphone amp, right?

Has anyone ever done anything similar?
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