This kind of stuff gets my juices going. There's no excuse for it. But an 8-channel external sound card for £10 really does it.
I had a look around and there are quite a few such sound cards available in the price range of $20 to $30 here in the US. Here's a short list: Asonic External USB 2.0 8 Channel Sound Card CM106 Like Sabrent USB-SND8 8-Channel USB 2.0 External Digital Output StarTech.com ICUSBAUDIO7D Extended Sound Card USB Audio Adapter Encore ENMAB-8CM 7.1 Channel USB Audio Bo Syba SD-AUD20040 CM6206 7.1 channel bus-powered (DC5.0v / 500mA). PPA Int’l 1455 USB 6 Channel External Sound Adapter Diamond External Xtreme Sound 7.1-Channel USB Audio Device CREATIVE LABS - 70SB109500000 - SB X-FI SURROUND 5.1 PRO USB 6 Channel 5.1 External Sound Audio Card Adapter PC( NOT WINDOWS 7) CM6206 chipset, USB spec 2.0 full speed compliant, USB audio device class spec. 1.0 and USB HID class spec. 1.1 compliant The first four are all identical, as near as I can figure. I wouldn't be surprised if all of them use the C-Media CM6206. The reviews of these various products on Amazon and NewEgg are really mixed. Some buyers plugged the device (whichever one) in and it worked. Others plugged it in and it didn't work and then rated the device as 1 star. That doesn't surprise me. I did find pages describing the use of these sound cards under Mac OS. http://www.dr-lex.be/software/cm6206.html What's inside the box? A PCB with a few mini phone jacks and a USB connector, and a single IC. The CM6206 drives the outputs directly through a 10 uF capacitor. If you're lucky there's even a pull-down resistor on the output side. That's pretty much it. I have some data sheets for the C-Media CM6206 if that will help. C-Media is a really funny company. They won't give out the data sheets. It's a secret! Eric ----- Original Message ---- From: Richard Dobson <[email protected]> To: Surround Sound discussion group <[email protected]> Sent: Wed, June 27, 2012 1:22:07 AM Subject: Re: [Sursound] ultra-cheap m/c USB cards for the R-Pi? Yes, very much something like that. If it can be plugged straight into a standard Linux box and just work, with a m/c stream, then in principle it should work on the R-Pi. I am simply hoping to skip the trial and error stage (which could get expensive quite quickly!), by finding out if anyone has trodden this path already, with one or another of those devices. In particular, finding a device that eventually "works if you configure it ~this way~" is preferable to finding a device that "can't be made to work", given that the two may be indistinguishable to begin with. It would help if manufacturers and suppliers were rigorous about describing a device as class-compliant, but by no means all do, especially at the low end. Richard Dobson _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list [email protected] https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
