I have found that these small ARM boards (Raspberry Pi, etc.) are very useful for a variety of audio-related tasks. They can be streaming clients, perform DSP processing (in software), have GPIO pins that can toggle relays for various purposes (like automatically turning on-board amps on and off, or whatever you can think of!), etc. You can use inexpensive (less than $50) USB DACs in multiples for multichannel audio output, or you can get a 7.1 channel DAC, e.g. something like MiniDSP's uDAC8 (8-channel USB DAC). In the past couple of years I have moved in the direction of using these and away from hardware DSP solutions. I use one R-Pi in each speaker to create active loudspeakers that are fed streaming audio and have onboard DSP via ecasound and LADSPA pluginns. It's both flexible and powerful, and has been a great DIY adventure for me. I have been focused on the development of these things and now I hope to finally get back to speaker building again!
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