Multiple output digital amp/dac

[Zizico2]

Hi guys. Basically what I want to achieve is: have a device that I digitally connect to my computer, be it usb, Ethernet, PCIe, wtv, that has multiple analog audio outputs, that I can individually address inside windows, in the volume mixer (or inside whichever OS I decide to run). I thought I was looking for a dac or an amp/dac combo. But I can't find anything that does this. Any thoughts? My final resort would be to just buy multiple cheap sound cards...

[ShearMe]

Do you mean concurrent audio outputs? Like, Spotify goes out one port, chrome goes out another?

 

Windows doesn't support this, no matter your hardware.

 

Edit: Apparently a windows 10 update came along to allow this.

 

@Zizico2 I think your best/cheapest/most realistic option is going to be multiple soundcards or DACs.

[Himommies]

6 minutes ago, ShearMe said:

Do you mean concurrent audio outputs? Like, Spotify goes out one port, chrome goes out another?

 

Windows doesn't support this, no matter your hardware.

Go under sound mixer options in settings. I haven't used it but i'm pretty sure you can. 

To do this with windows I'm pretty sure all you have to do is be able to physically plug evreything directly into a sound card or the motherboard( IDK if it works with DAC/AMPS as you can only assign 1 output to them)

 

[ShearMe]

1 minute ago, Himommies said:

Go under sound mixer options in settings. I haven't used it but i'm pretty sure you can. 

To do this with windows I'm pretty sure all you have to do is be able to physically plug evreything directly into a sound card or the motherboard( IDK if it works with DAC/AMPS as you can only assign 1 output to them)

 

Thanks, this "sound mixer" was new to me, and Google still tries to push info on the legacy "volume mixer". I updated my post with an article about it.

[Zizico2]

6 minutes ago, Himommies said:

Go under sound mixer options in settings. I haven't used it but i'm pretty sure you can. 

To do this with windows I'm pretty sure all you have to do is be able to physically plug evreything directly into a sound card or the motherboard( IDK if it works with DAC/AMPS as you can only assign 1 output to them)

 

I'm pretty sure there would be no technical barrier to achieve this with a USB device. I might end up just buying multiple sound cards as my Mobo only has 1 output. My problem is if I need 10 outputs. On a 30€ per card, that's 300€. That's the price of a decent amp... Do you know any cheap sc you could recommend?

[Himommies]

Just now, Zizico2 said:

I'm pretty sure there would be no technical barrier to achieve this with a USB device. I might end up just buying multiple sound cards as my Mobo only has 1 output. My problem is if I need 10 outputs. On a 30€ per card, that's 300€. That's the price of a decent amp... Do you know any cheap sc you could recommend?

If possible go on your local classifieds. Guaranteed theirs at least a couple pep ole offloading their old sound cards. But like in this case literally almost anything will work so just buy the cheapest thing avalible

[Zizico2]

8 minutes ago, Himommies said:

If possible go on your local classifieds. Guaranteed theirs at least a couple pep ole offloading their old sound cards. But like in this case literally almost anything will work so just buy the cheapest thing avalible

Why do you say almost anything will work?

I have a USB sound card on hand that sounds like absolute crap (3.5 jack out).

[ShearMe]

22 minutes ago, Zizico2 said:

On a 30€ per card, that's 300€. 

I mean I know of some multi thousand dollar pieces of equipment as an alternative... 

 

300 dollars/euros is cheap for niche equipment scenarios.

[Himommies]

12 minutes ago, Zizico2 said:

Why do you say almost anything will work?

I have a USB sound card on hand that sounds like absolute crap (3.5 jack out).

That would probable work. You just need a bunch as long as they are each their own driver if that makes sense. 

[Zizico2]

8 minutes ago, Himommies said:

That would probable work. You just need a bunch as long as they are each their own driver if that makes sense. 

Yes I know, I was just saying that this one for instance, wouldn't work as I want to be able to listen to them xd. I need reasonably sounding ones.

[Himommies]

Just now, Zizico2 said:

Yes I know, I was just saying that this one for instance, wouldn't work as I want to be able to listen to them xd. I need reasonably sounding ones.

Well you know It probably will sound "ok" but other than that your gonna be spending a lot of money

[Zizico2]

12 minutes ago, ShearMe said:

I mean I know of some multi thousand dollar pieces of equipment as an alternative... 

 

300 dollars/euros is cheap for niche equipment scenarios.

I guess... And do you know multi thousand dollar pieces of equipment that would do what I want? My "high-end" solution would be a multi-zone amp with 10 zones or so. It would cost me my car but I would still need to somehow get the different outputs from my PC to plug into the amp

[Zizico2]

2 minutes ago, Himommies said:

Well you know It probably will sound "ok" but other than that your gonna be spending a lot of money

Yeah... ...

[Enderman]

Audio interfaces with multiple outputs like focusrite scarlett exist but the multiple sets of outputs are only addressable through a DAW.

Pretty sure the same applies to all other multi-thousand dollar pro-audio gear, they're not made to have individual windows outputs.

 

If you have a GPU with multiple HDMI outputs each one will show up as a separate windows audio playback device though, so you could use that to get your multiple digital audio streams.

[Himommies]

7 minutes ago, Zizico2 said:

I guess... And do you know multi thousand dollar pieces of equipment that would do what I want?

You would need to buy around 10 different output drivers, such as a DAC and patch it through like that, ideally with something like a patch bay so you don't running hundreds of cables

 

 

[ShearMe]

30 minutes ago, Zizico2 said:

I guess... And do you know multi thousand dollar pieces of equipment that would do what I want? My "high-end" solution would be a multi-zone amp with 10 zones or so. It would cost me my car but I would still need to somehow get the different outputs from my PC to plug into the amp

What exactly are you trying to do?

[Zizico2]

38 minutes ago, Himommies said:

You would need to buy around 10 different output drivers, such as a DAC and patch it through like that, ideally with something like a patch bay so you don't running hundreds of cables

 

 

That's what I'll do if noone has a better solution (I'm currently waiting for a response on Reddit from a guy that said individual outputs in an audio interface might be addressable outside a raw).

I found these on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.es/dp/B00XY5ORCK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_a5gyEbFPPCJ8K

I might use them.

[Zizico2]

2 minutes ago, ShearMe said:

What exactly are you trying to do?

This (see picture).

The red device should have mono outs to connect to the speakers. I could then use multiple amplifiers to drive the speakers or the red device could already have that built in (as the picture suggests). I wanted to use this as a multi room audio setup, in which each speaker could play from different sources.

[ShearMe]

Just now, Zizico2 said:

This (see picture).

The red device should have mono outs to connect to the speakers. I could then use multiple amplifiers to drive the speakers or the red device could already have that built in (as the picture suggests). I wanted to use this as a multi room audio setup, in which each speaker could play from different sources.

 

I get the concept, just trying to understand the need for all these zones to come from a single computer. Traditionally this kind of thing is done with multiple computers or VMs in extreme scenarios. 

[Zizico2]

14 minutes ago, ShearMe said:

I get the concept, just trying to understand the need for all these zones to come from a single computer. Traditionally this kind of thing is done with multiple computers or VMs in extreme scenarios. 

There is no need. I've looked at things such as snapcast. I could just connect raspberry pis to the speakers (with an amp somewhere in there), and use them as snapcast clients. And run the snapcast server on my main server. It's just not my preferred solution. Honestly I don't like the audio services you can use with snapcast (namely mopidy and volumeio) and they can only output 1 source to all the snapcast speakers. I have coded my own solution. As of now it requires all the outputs to be in the same machine. I could do it a la snapcast, but not only will the sound have worse quality (I don't really care tbh), but, more importantly I have to manage more machines and the complexity of my code grows f***in exponentially.

If you don't known snapcast, it's a diy sonos-like audio system. I assumed you know it based on your reply.

 

What I might do is just connect 1 Raspberry pi for each room in my house and run Spotify connect on them. The only problem would be that speaker groups are static. I wouldn't able to play the same source in 2 rooms.

[ShearMe]

2 minutes ago, Zizico2 said:

There is no need. I've looked at things such as snapcast. I could just connect raspberry pis to the speakers (with an amp somewhere in there), and use them as snapcast clients. And run the snapcast server on my main server. It's just not my preferred solution. Honestly I don't like the audio services you can use with snapcast (namely mopidy and volumeio). I have coded my own solution. As of now it requires all the outputs to be in the same machine. I could it a la snapcast, but not only will the sound have worse quality (I don't really care tbh), but, more importantly I have to manage more machines and the complexity of my code grows f***in exponentially.

If you don't known snapcast, it's a diy sonos-like audio system. I assumed you know it based on your reply.

I have not heard of snapcast.

 

I'm an installer of commercial audio/visual equipment which can range anywhere from standalone classrooms to building-wide distributed video conference systems. I touch a lot of Crestron and Biamp devices, and occasionally a client prefers Extron or AMX. Never have I seen a single Windows computer outputting different audio signals to multiple locations. Before this thread the new Sound mixer in windows was unknown to me, and I have to wonder how stable the audio will be going to that many different devices. Windows isn't exactly stable with audio going to a single device. 

 

But hey, if this makes your home brew solution work I'd say give it a try. I don't know the quality of those specific DACs you linked, but surely they're not horrible. Plus, Amazon's return policy is great. 

[Zizico2]

5 minutes ago, ShearMe said:

I have not heard of snapcast.

 

I'm an installer of commercial audio/visual equipment which can range anywhere from standalone classrooms to building-wide distributed video conference systems. I touch a lot of Crestron and Biamp devices, and occasionally a client prefers Extron or AMX. Never have I seen a single Windows computer outputting different audio signals to multiple locations. Before this thread the new Sound mixer in windows was unknown to me, and I have to wonder how stable the audio will be going to that many different devices. Windows isn't exactly stable with audio going to a single device. 

 

But hey, if this makes your home brew solution work I'd say give it a try. I don't know the quality of those specific DACs you linked, but surely they're not horrible. Plus, Amazon's return policy is great. 

I'll probably be using Linux. ALSA I think, or OSS. I just used Windows as an example as I assumed most people would know the sound mixer.

[ninbura]

22 hours ago, Enderman said:

Audio interfaces with multiple outputs like focusrite scarlett exist but the multiple sets of outputs are only addressable through a DAW.

Pretty sure the same applies to all other multi-thousand dollar pro-audio gear, they're not made to have individual windows outputs.

 

If you have a GPU with multiple HDMI outputs each one will show up as a separate windows audio playback device though, so you could use that to get your multiple digital audio streams.

Just about every interface by RME gives you multiple distinctly controllable output devices outside of a DAW. Whether you want to route different digital outputs to multiple physical outputs, or the same digital output to multiple physical outputs.

For example, the RME Fireface UC. All 16 optical & 16 analog outputs show as distinct output devices in windows:


On top of that RMEs digital mixer "Totalmix" (which actually controls the interface on a hardware level), lets you route any digital output to any physical output. Whether that be analog or ADAT / optical, and whether you want a stereo or mono output. Every individual physical output channel can be toggled between stereo / mono, and act as their own sub-mix:


OP while you could use something like the RME 802 to get 10+ mono analog outputs on "one" interface, they cost a whopping $2000. And the 802 has multiple mic inputs / pre amps which do nothing to suit your case. I believe the "dream" device you're looking for is the RME Digiface USB, with an Aphex Model 141 ADAT expansion, not that it would be astronomically cheaper ($900). Basically the Digiface sends digital outputs over the ADAT / optical connector(s) to the Aphex Model 141, which converts the digital signal into 8 mono or 4 stereo outputs. The digiface already has 2 mono or 1 stereo analog output(s) via the headphone jack, so with one Digiface and one Aphex Model 141 you'd have 10 mono outputs. And since the the Digiface has 4 ADAT / Optical outputs, that gives you up to 32 mono, or 16 stereo outputs via ADAT / optical if you ever wanted to expand. The Digiface would show in your operating system as 16 separate output devices, similar to how I explained with the Fireface above. And the Digiface can be used with Totalmix (RME's mixer) just like the Fireface, meaning you can basically accomplish any routing that you want.

That being said, I don't believe any of RME's newer interfaces support Linux, as you've alluded you might be using it. Maybe you could just run Ubuntu on-top of windows using WSL or WSL2.

Short video explaining basics of totalmix:

 

[Enderman]

49 minutes ago, TheNimbleOne said:

Just about every interface by RME gives you multiple distinctly controllable output devices outside of a DAW. Whether you want to route different digital outputs to multiple physical outputs, or the same digital output to multiple physical outputs.

For example, the RME Fireface UC. All 16 optical & 16 analog outputs show as distinct output devices in windows:

Oh cool I had no idea.

My 2i4 only has a single addressable output so I assume it's the same for all the other focusrite interfaces.

[ninbura]

6 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Oh cool I had no idea.

My 2i4 only has a single addressable output so I assume it's the same for all the other focusrite interfaces.

I could be wrong, but I believe there are some higher end Focusrite interfaces with similar functionality to an RME interface.

 

At on point I had a friend give me a tour of his and I was surprised by how versatile it was, definitely had ADAT on it, can’t remember the model though.
 

Will have to investigate sometime, I’ve never had anything other than the 2i2 from Focusrite.