[ale] Multi-Channel Whole House Audio

Joshua Kite jwkite at gmail.com
Fri Oct 9 13:58:06 EDT 2009


For my home setup I managed to find an inexpensive transmitter that serves
as a USB sound card.  As best as I can tell, the D/A conversion takes place
at the sound card/transmitter and the transmission itself is analog.  There
is a benefit to an analog transmission in that there is no lag or difference
in conversion rates from receiver to receiver.  This keeps the music in
synch, which means that if you are in a point where you can hear music from
multiple rooms that they sound right.

My particular system also has the ability to receive IR signals from a
remote control, but I am not technical enough to be able to make that work.

Josh

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 1:32 PM, Richard Bronosky <Richard at bronosky.com>wrote:

> I think there is a flaw we're overlooking. Why would you use multiple
> sound cards? There are 2 approaches I would consider. The first is a
> tiny Arduino-like network device in each room. It could be connected
> via ethernet or WiFi. The second option would be a USB audio devices
> that can be daisy chained with hubs. I would be reluctant to do the
> D/A conversion at the head unit. I would pursue the network connected
> approach.
>
> On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 1:21 PM, Rev. Johnny Healey <rev.null at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > ALSA has no problems seeing multiple sound cards and different apps
> > can access the different sound cards to play audio on them.
> >
> > That being said, I don't know if there are any existing audio programs
> > set up to send different streams to different sound cards, but there
> > is nothing to prevent you from having multiple running instances of
> > any program (such as aplay) utilizing the different devices.
> >
> > -Johnny
> >
> > On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Greg Clifton <gccfof5 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> So we're working on a project that we may try to sell to the home
> >> theater/whole house audio segment. Basically the intent is to put
> perhaps as
> >> many as 4 (or more if possible) sound cards into a single system and be
> able
> >> to port different audio streams out the different sound cards to
> different
> >> zones. The intent is to be able to have simultaneous audio playback of
> >> different sound files to different zones in a whole house audio system.
> >>
> >> Looks like it can't be done with I-tunes, but could be done with WinAmp.
> >> Before I dig deeply into Linux solutions myself, I thought I should ask
> the
> >> brain trust.  Any suggestions on feasibility and suggested approach
> under
> >> Linux?
> >>
> >> Much appreciated,
> >> Greg Clifton
> >>
> >>
> >>
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>
> --
> .!# RichardBronosky #!.
>
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