[LAU] surround sound with stereo usb DACs?

[Loki Davison]

2009/1/15 Bearcat M. Şandor <hometheater at feline-soul.com>:
> On Wednesday 14 January 2009 18:01:06 Loki Davison wrote:
>> 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 ;)
> Thanks Loki.  I appreciate the help.
> I actually have a M-Audio delta 1010LT. I found i could not play two streams
> at the same time. So i  hooked things up to the intelHD (onboard sound) and
> was amazed at how much better it sounded.  I was dumbstruck. A cloudiness was
> gone and imaging was much more precise.   I don't know what to say save that
> my intelhd may have advanced past the Delta 1010LT. It's an old card and this
> board is only  year old.
>

This sounds very, very strange. Same software setup? Jack? Try using
aqualung and play via jack a stereo stream to both and report back
results. It sounds like the 1010lt either must be either incorrectly
setup, working in the wrong mode or damaged. However if that isn't the
case it's interesting as well. Both running 24 bit at same sample
rate? Try both at 44.1 playing a 44.1 flac/ogg/mp3 source. Be streams
what do you mean? If you mean 2 programs playing at once, steam
numbers are basically unlimited with jack. If you mean distinct
channels on the 1010 are 10 out i think. Do you mean hardware mixing?
i.e multiple alsa/oss open to a single channel?  Either way, this
sounds strange.

Loki