[linux-audio-dev] Cheap 8 channel Out: multi-IO or USB ? performance etc

[Benno Senoner]

Hi,
a friend of mine is building a system that plays sounds on different
speakers (up to 8-10 mono channels ) based on certain input events such
as light sensors and mechanical triggers.
The audio quality does not need to be high.
Latency can be as high as 100 msec.

My question is what is the cheapest way to get 8-10 analogue outs. 
(consumer quality).
I heard of USB speakers, could this be a valid solution ?
Are they supported under linux ? If yes which kind of models ?
Can one use multiple stereo USB speakers on the same USB bus ?
e.g. CD quality stereo audio uses 1.4Mbit thus I was wondering how
much channels one can reliably stream over USB so that there no
dropouts occur ?
Recent PCs have two USB outs, is this the same shared bus or can
one max out the bandwidth on both ports simultaneously ?
How about adding more USB cards, is this supported under Linux ?

The other alternative would be to use a multi-io card with 8 or more
channels or multiple 4 channel cards ?
The Terratec EWS88 8-analogue channels out seems interesting but a bit 
expensive for my purpose.
How about using 2 4-channel cards ? 
Which card would you suggest ? Hoontech ? Are these (or similar cards)
 still available ?

Sorry for all these questions and thanks for infos !
cheers,
Benno


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