[LAU] 384kHz DAC - Monolith USB?

[Peter]

Dear Chris,

Am 03.04.2018 um 20:34 schrieb Chris Chronopoulos:
> i'm aware of ADAT, but the motivator here is cost/scalability. most ADAT interfaces are optimized for input with preamps, etc. plus it's limited to 8 channels per link, so there's recurring overhead if you want to scale higher.
> imagine trying to do high channel count (e.g. spatial audio) on a budget. i'm not aware of any configuration that will get you >16 channels analog for <$1k.

An alternative would consist in low-cost I2S devices, like the Adafruit I2S Stereo Decoder - UDA1334A.
I don't know anything about the sound quality, but it's a stereo DAC below 10€. I'm not sure how many
I2S devices you can plug at a raspberry. But since there are ALSA driver available, this would would provide
a starting point to possibly connect several of those devices. This could be a low budget route.
Presumably there are I2S DACs with more channels.

In addition, last December there was  a thread on "recommendations for output-only audio devices",
where a < https://www.minidsp.com/products/usb-audio-interface/u-dac8 > was mentioned.

Best regards,
Peter