I'm planning a DIY monitor speaker. Since this is not for sale, I thought I don't need a external DSP board instead of my computer. I've already routed all my computer audio source to daw as the endpoint. So the Xover process is not my concern. But i'm struggling with post Xover. I originally planned to use 3 DACs & amplifiers to drive 3way speakers. But I soon realized something was inefficient... Does anyone know of a device that can simultaneously convert multiple USB inputs to DA analogue signals at the same time? At first I looked for a digital mixer, but i couldn't find the mixer that have USB input on each channel even when I went to the cat goods shop. Help!
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I don't know of anything that accepts multiple USB CABLES. There are several USB sound boxes that have multiple inputs and outputs fed from a single USB cable or internal card.
For years I have used an M-Audio Delta 1010. I actually have 3 of them and they still work in W7, haven't tried W10. They are driven from an internal PCI card (NOT PCIe) so an older PC is usually required, but there are several modern motherboards that still support 1 or 2 legacy PCI slots. The Delta 1010 claims 10 inputs and 10 outputs, but there are actually only 8 sets of 24/96 converters (8 analog ins and outs) the other two I/O's are SPDIF.
I recently got a Focusrite Clarett 4 PRE, but it only has 4 X 24/192 analog outputs. There are dozens of models from several vendors with plenty of individual analog outputs.
These all show up as individual outputs in your DAW, or as stereo pairs. It was relatively easy to set up a channel strip in Sonar for each pair of outputs and apply EQ to each pair for a DIY crossover. I imagine that the same could be done in Ableton Live, but I haven't actually tried it.
My need for the fat sound boxes is for the input capability, I'm only using one set of outputs on the Clarett for speakers plus the headphone jacks.
You can always use an inexpensive PCIe -> PCI adapter. Some even have the same PCIe->PCI chips used in good-brand PCI->PCI-e soundcard reborns (Asus Essence STX, ESI Juli XTE).
The advantage of adapters with USB3 extension cable (e.g. https://pg-cdn-a2.datacaciques.com/17/07/05/08tg0hy15s9v8qsa/eb5846cae78b9333.jpg works for me) is that you can keep the soundcard outside of the noisy PC case and provide you own +12V supply (and -12V after a minor modification). The one I have uses Pericom P17C9X being found on also on some industrial-grade MBs, e.g. by Fujitsu Haswell1150 industrial motherboards with 4 or more PCI slots - PlanetZ@scopeusers.com .
I may get one of those for another project.
The old Delta 1010 (not the 1010LT) is a two piece system. The card that goes in the PC is just the digital interface. The converters and all the other audio stuff goes in a 1RU rack mount box. it's pretty old and the electrolytics are beginning to fail in the power supply in the external audio box. You can often find bad ones cheap on Ebay and change all the electrolytics in the power supply. That's where mine came from.
I upgraded my studio PC and it's MB did not have PCI, so I got the Focusrite USB 3 box. I believe that it sounds a little better than the old Delta.
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