[tjumper78]

like the title says, can two usb dacs be plugged-in and work at the same time? on the same computer obviously.
it's something i want to try but i dont want to risk anything.
thanks in advance.

 

[LeftyGorilla]

That really depends on your operating system, and if you can direct the applications that are playing music to different different outputs.

You're talking about, for example, running audio from a movie through an external speaker setup while listening to some choice tunes on a headphone?

Under Linux this is at least in theory possible with an audio server such as PulseAudio. I'm not sure if Jack can do it. Actually I'm not certain that PulseAudio can do it, but it should be able to.

 

[breakfastchef]

In my expereince, no. It seems that the first USB/DAC plugged in hijacks the audio.

 

[fordgtlover]

I wasn't able to get it to work on XP with ASIO. I'd be interested if anyone has had it working.

Oh, it didn't do any damage to the computer or the DACs. I just could get sound out of both DACs simultaneously.

 

[tjumper78]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fordgtlover /img/forum/go_quote.gif I wasn't able to get it to work on XP with ASIO. I'd be interested if anyone has had it working. Oh, it didn't do any damage to the computer or the DACs. I just could get sound out of both DACs simultaneously.

thats good to hear(except the asio not working part). thank you so much.
now, has anyone successfully gotten asio to work with two usb dacs that are running simultaneously on the same computer? any advice will be appreciated.

 

[VeipaCray]

If you used something like VMware, you might be able to run one DAC from the host OS, and one DAC from the guest OS. Not sure if this meets your needs.

 

[btag]

Windows generally makes a newly plugged in sound card the default sound card. This is probably the "hijacking" mentioned earlier. It can be set via the "Sounds and audio devices" under control panel. On the audio tab select the DAC you want to use under "sound playback". That will make windows default to that sound card. As for using both at the same time. That will depend entirely on your software. You need software that can select the non-default sound card.

I know foobar can play through the non-default sound card if you set it right. I don't have any experience with ASIO becuse my sound cards don't support it. I think there is an option to select the sound card/DAC to use somewhere.
Also MediaPlayerClassic support this.

In summary: the key it to have software set to a specific DAC to output to and not listen to the "Windows Default" as most software ship with as a default.

 

[LeonvB]

Quote:

like the title says, can two usb dacs be plugged-in and work at the same time? on the same computer obviously. it's something i want to try but i dont want to risk anything.

Yes. It works best when you can select the output device in your software. If not, start the software with DAC 1 as the default audio device, and then change the default audio device. Then start your second instance or other software. In general, this should work as software that does not allow you to select the device only determines the default audio device at startup.

P.S. you can't break anything doing this, so there's no risk involved. Worst that can happen is skipping in one or both tracks as both DACs could compete for the same bandwidth. Even that can be avoided by using diffent root hubs for both devices.

 

[funnelchest]

I have a mac and I've been running two usb dacs for a while now (one to phone amp, other to speakers) and a must have free utility I use daily is soundsource (Rogue Amoeba - Freebies) which makes it able to be able to select what input/outputs I want.

Just throwing it out there for the apple folks.