On 1/10/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Sampo Savolainen</b> &lt;<a href="mailto:v2@iki.fi">v2@iki.fi</a>&gt; wrote:<div><span class="gmail_quote"></span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>Example: Just after 10 seconds, the 1st card in my example will be emitting<br>sample 441010 (44101 * 10), and the other card will be emitting sample<br>440300 (44030 * 10). This means that if the original audio has been recorded
<br>at exactly 44100, the cards are already 0.016 seconds apart from eachother!<br>(44030 is an example of a really crappy clock chip on a card, but it&#39;s not<br>unheard of)</blockquote><div><br>OK, so what is the workaround? Couldn&#39;t the card that is behind be made to catch up between songs? Couldn&#39;t every 1000th sample be dropped on the crappier card? Etc. In any case, in your example, the cards would be about 1 second out of sync for every 20 minutes of play time. In my use case, this really does not matter, as, again, the speakers are in different rooms. If the software can be made to cope (which it surely should be made to, if the problem is as prevalent as you describe) then afaic there is no problem. 
<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Let me re-iterate: Without syncing the soundcards, this /will/ happen. This<br>
is not a legend or some far-fetched possibility that people speak of but<br>which really never affects real life.</blockquote><div><br>I touched on this above. So how do I sync the cards? Is there a specific method to do this with alsa?&nbsp;  
<br></div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Just imagine two wall-clocks. Can you really expect them to keep the exact<br>
same time over years of continuous running without anyone re-setting them?</blockquote><div><br></div></div>If they were hardware being run by the same software on the same PC then, yes, I would expect them to (be made to) stay in sync, regardless of their mechanical quirks. 
<br><br>Cheers<br>Reuben<br>