Are there any solutions for a 5.1 channel USB -> I2S converter that isn't $100's+?
Not that I know of.
If not are there any PC drivers that can connect to say 3 stereo USB -> I2S devices and appear as a single 5.1 channel device?
If you use OSX you can aggregate multiple sound interface devices. The Problem you've not considered is the clock synch between the 3 stereo usb->i2s devices will be problematic.
There is no free lunch in multichannel usb audio.
All adaptive USB cards run synchronously since they are timed from clock in the PC. If I really wanted to make sure, I would use an add-on PCI USB controller with 4 outputs which has a single chip (mostly VIA VT6212) and a single crystal. This way I would know all the four usb ports share a single clock.
4 cards hooked to these ports can be merged in software to form a single virtual device - in linux, osx. There may be even some tools in windows, no experience.
Of course using a single multichannel device is much more convenient
4 cards hooked to these ports can be merged in software to form a single virtual device - in linux, osx. There may be even some tools in windows, no experience.
Of course using a single multichannel device is much more convenient
... If I really wanted to make sure, I would use an add-on PCI USB controller with 4 outputs which has a single chip (mostly VIA VT6212) and a single crystal. This way I would know all the four usb ports share a single clock...
Clever idea. Just need a windows driver
Bandwidth of USB 1.1 is not enough for surround uncompressed audio.
You need to go with a standard lossy compression like DolbyDigital or DTS.
I have a dirt cheap 5.1 USB soundcard and it works fine at 5.1 48/16.
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