[LAU] surround sound with stereo usb DACs?

[Loki Davison]

2009/1/15 Bearcat M. Şandor <hometheater at feline-soul.com>:
>
>> Have you thought of buying a decent pci sound card? A PCI solution
>> would mostly likely be better in almost every way.
>> You can choose a level of price quality, and > 8 channel out is easy
>> to find. My echo 3g does that fine, with no arseing around and i would
>> suspect superior sound quality, if not put and DAC you like on the
>> ADAT out... ;)
>>
>> Loki
> I have actually.  I'm thinking that i could get *fantastic* quality out of a
> RME MADI and that multichannel converter they have. However, the inputs and 64
> channels ^o.0^ is overkill.
>
> If i get a good pci card and are therefore doing the D/A conversion in the box
> how much do i need to worry about electrical isolation and noise and all that?
>

D/A conversion isn't done in the box with the sound card i mentioned,
the echo 3g i have. Google for pics. But on cards where it is, sounds
quality / isolation / noise is still far better than most usb cards.
The whole usb / out of box thing is cheesy sales pitch basically. Get
a cheap pci card => be happy. Look at anything with envy chip
basically and m-audio delta, echo's cards, etc. Should find a much
better setup than a bunch of dodgy usb things. > than one card is a
really bad idea unless they are designed for it, and from my
experience, usb audio is a really bad idea on it own ;)

Loki