Is it possible to have multiple sound outputs on a PC?

[El Moose Monstero]

Evening all,

Was just wondering whether anyone knows a way to build a computer cheaply to act as a hifi - but one that can play different music in different rooms.

Obviously just getting the same sound to work in multiple rooms is easy without needing to build a computer for the job, but I was looking at all these expensive multiple control panel hifis about the place and wondering if there was a cheaper way to do it with a computer so that you could simply burn all your music to a hard drive and then use just one device but have the ability to play different music simultaneously.

I'm not very technical (at all), but my first thought was to wonder if it could be done by having multiple sound cards installed and then tell a media player to use one sound device and another to use anoter.

Any thoughts?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

In theory (and it's perfectly possible that I'm talking out of my ass here) you could set up such a thing. You would need multiple sound cards, mind, though if you already have one you could use your mobo's integrated sound as a ghetto substitution for one as well. Set your programs to play the desired music, but under "Primary Sound Device" in that particular program's options, you could theoretically use a different sound card for each different bit of music needed, and then plug the speakers into the relevant ports.

I've never done anything like this, mind, but that's how I'd set about trying to do it were I in your place.

[Braedley]

There's no real reason why you shouldn't be able to do this, although it may take using a Linux machine in order to do so. I think there is professional DJ software out there that will do this, but it probably would cost an arm and a leg.

[aerius]

I've done it before with my old computer which had 2 soundcards. I remember it being a pain in the ass to get working right and some games wouldn't run properly on my computer. Other than that I don't remember having any issues.

[El Moose Monstero]

Why would it need a Linux machine specifically? I've never had cause to deal with Linux before, so I know very little about it.

I've seen a Philips machine recently that plays a single sound output across several rooms wirelessly, but it's £500 for the base unit and £300 for each secondary unit.

I was sure that there must be a cheaper way to do better than that without having to have networked computers in each room which would look ungainly and hog a lot of electricity.

A related question for this would be whether anyone has used those small 7" monitor screens you can get for a car in connection with a standard PC? I think that they might be ideal for the stations in each room. Although I've not thought about how to actually get user control in each room yet.

At the moment, this is a pen and paper project, my parents were rumbling about possibly being interested if I could do it cheaply, but at the moment I'm a student without more than 1 room to need sound in.

[TheFeniX]

Although I've never actually tried it: wouldn't it be possible to use two different user logons and user fast switching to run separate instances of WMP (or whatever) going out through different sound cards?

If you were going that way, you could probably find an open source player and output through your "line-out" if your card had a "speaker" output as well.

I know my integrated card has three standard stereo lines (not counting the surround outputs): mic, line-out, speaker (essentially just another line-out), but I had never considered what the original poster is doing.

[Zac Naloen]

In theory here's how I think it would work.

Completely in my head, but I think vista, perhaps even XP, could handle this at the very least if you don't want to migrate away from windows.

You'd need a sound card for every room.

and a computer profile for every room.

You'd then specify in the preferences for each profile which sound card to use for output.

Then it should just be a case of logging into each (using the switch user ability) profile, firing up the music player and hitting play.

You'd of course need some several meter long VGA cables depending on the house, and probably a couple of cheapo graphics cards assuming 4 rooms (two outputs per card) all set to output a clone of the desktop. Assuming this you'd also need an SLI/ or whatever the other equivalent is capable motherboard/cards.

The rest will be limited by memory and CPU. Memory for the multiple profiles will probably be the biggest hurdle. But if you make sure nothing but basic windows is installed and all advanced features are off I can't see that being a massive issue.



Assuming, £10 for 4 sound cards.

£50 per graphics card
£20 for a case
£60 -70 for a large hard drive with fast read speed.
£60-70 for an sli capable motherboard
£50ish pound for a reasonable processor.
£100 for a decent amount of RAM
... I have no idea how much the monitors cost... but in total... it's not looking especially cheap right now.

[El Moose Monstero]

snip

This was generally my thinking as well, although the user account stuff wasn't something I'd thought about, but greatly simplifies matters.

Monitors are the major cost, the rest is ok I think - I can probably get your estimate down a bit through some bargain hunting and maybe those monitor splitter cables if all I'm doing is cloning the signal.

Good to know it can be done, I guess the monitor side of things needs a bit more thinking. I was hoping to maybe use small monitor screens, I swear I saw some on ebay this morning for a reasonable price, but can't find them again now. Curses.

[Sea Skimmer]

Assuming, £10 for 4 sound cards.

£50 per graphics card
£20 for a case
£60 -70 for a large hard drive with fast read speed.
£60-70 for an sli capable motherboard
£50ish pound for a reasonable processor.
£100 for a decent amount of RAM
... I have no idea how much the monitors cost... but in total... it's not looking especially cheap right now.

And why the hell are you suggesting duel graphics cards and SLI for a computer built to play multiple sound outputs? SLI is a dubious enough investment for a pure gaming rig, it doesn’t even begin to make sense here. I’m not sure what Vista’s ram requirements truly are, but four gigs of DDR2 ram can be had for just 80 USD.

[Uraniun235]

I don't know why "fast read speed" is even necessary, I mean MP3 or even OGG or FLAC aren't going to be such a huge draw as to necessitate a specifically fast hard drive... just get the most gigabytes per pound sterling you can, and last I checked that was the 750GB drives.

[Ariphaos]

Yes this is possible, though I've never done it with more than two - and not for a long time. Decent software lets you define your output device. Just set it for your different programs and you're good to go. No need for any of this user switching nonsense. You should be able to build the system for less than $400 US, maybe a bit more if you want frills like a DVD drive.

[RThurmont]

It would cost quite a bit less if you did not have a monitor/mouse/keyboard set up in each room. In an ideal world, what I would do would be to put an iPod Touch in each room with opened firmware and some central management app, and back everything up on a central NAS. The big problem would stem from the fact that from what I've heard (I don't have an iPod Touch, but I do have an iPhone, two 2G shuffles, and a 2G Nano) from both the iPods themselves and from third partie audiphiles, is that the sound output on the iPhones is somewhat less than perfect, especially for the type of high quality set up that's being discussed here.

Another real simple, easily manageable approach would be to buy a used desktop and put one in each room. You could get a palette of 5 used desktops for about $150-$300 on eBay, I'd venture. With some deeply enjoyable hacking, you could set them up to network boot off of a central boot and sound server, and thus they'd each have access to a common library of tracks. You could perhaps remove the individual drives from the units and attach them to USB enclosures attached to the central system, to provide a good range of storage.

While I just made a post in which I disparaged RAID, this actually might be a rare instance of RAID 1 actually being a good solution.

[Uraniun235]

Assuming, £10 for 4 sound cards.

£50 per graphics card
£20 for a case
£60 -70 for a large hard drive with fast read speed.
£60-70 for an sli capable motherboard
£50ish pound for a reasonable processor.
£100 for a decent amount of RAM
... I have no idea how much the monitors cost... but in total... it's not looking especially cheap right now.

And why the hell are you suggesting duel graphics cards and SLI for a computer built to play multiple sound outputs? SLI is a dubious enough investment for a pure gaming rig, it doesn’t even begin to make sense here. I’m not sure what Vista’s ram requirements truly are, but four gigs of DDR2 ram can be had for just 80 USD.

Oh, he's going with his "separate vidcard per station" idea. In which case SLI is still absolutely unnecessary - get a motherboard with several PCI slots and buy a bunch of old PCI video cards. Much much cheaper.

[Zac Naloen]

Assuming, £10 for 4 sound cards.

£50 per graphics card
£20 for a case
£60 -70 for a large hard drive with fast read speed.
£60-70 for an sli capable motherboard
£50ish pound for a reasonable processor.
£100 for a decent amount of RAM
... I have no idea how much the monitors cost... but in total... it's not looking especially cheap right now.

And why the hell are you suggesting duel graphics cards and SLI for a computer built to play multiple sound outputs? SLI is a dubious enough investment for a pure gaming rig, it doesn’t even begin to make sense here. I’m not sure what Vista’s ram requirements truly are, but four gigs of DDR2 ram can be had for just 80 USD.

Oh, he's going with his "separate vidcard per station" idea. In which case SLI is still absolutely unnecessary - get a motherboard with several PCI slots and buy a bunch of old PCI video cards. Much much cheaper.

Yeh I realise now it's probably unnecessary.

That part isn't as expensive as I first thought. Although, in my defense, I was all worked out yesterday and not thinking clearly.


Oh and Skimmer, UK price for a non-budget RAM is between £70-£100 from most outlets. They don't tend to adjust the prices just because it's outside the US. They just stick a pound sign on the front of it most of the time.

Read speed I was actually thinking more in the lines of future proofing. In a few years they may decide they want to stream video from a central source or something. Probably an unnecessary cost at this time.