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

[Niklas Werner]

Am Montag, 25. November 2002 13:58 wurde geschrieben:
> >> I heard of USB speakers, could this be a valid solution ?
> >> Are they supported under linux ? If yes which kind of models ?
> >
> > they're basically usb audio devices with amp and speaker in one
> > box - so pretty much all of them work out of box (even the harman
> > kardon ones that don't work with windows)
>
> Thanks for the infos, but has anyone tried to work with more than
>  one signle stereo speakers set at time ?
> I fear that bandwidth problems could arise when using 8 channels.
> (AFAIK USB1 is 12Mbit)
>

I am working with Emagic's EMI 2|6 (2 in 6 out) and it works absolutely 
perfect on USB1.1 busses with alsa-cvs, so bandwidth seems to allow for 6 
channels. I even used two of them via an USB expansion card. no problem, 
once you get your data into an interleaved stream (see ac3dec-sources). 
It's not cheap, though, but's got brilliant sound (see 
http://www.niklaswerner.de/Assets/emi26test/ ).

AFAIK the usb-interfaces on modern PCs do supply the 12MBit per channel 
and not per hub.

have fun*

Niklas