Topic: Stable sound card DACing

[James]

I have not tried this yet, exactly, but I have worked with a variation on this theme...

If you are having issues with getting power from the USB cable; having offset or gain issues when moving from one USB port to another...

Get an external POWERED USB hub.

That should give you total stability.

When I was prototyping the 8 channel board, I used a nice little 5VDC wall wart.

James. 

[Fanny Pack]

Maybe power the USB sound card externally?  In other words, put the sound card and correction amp in a custom box, disconnect the 5v from the USB to the soundcard, and power both by an external 5V source.  Maybe that would confuse the USB stuff though.  Might be worth a try instead of adding another box (USB hub) to the mix.

[James]

That is exactly what I did with a little +5VDC wall-wart made to charge a wireless mouse.

Works great! 

Acutally, I let the USB power the sound card and I powered the amp with the wall wart.



But this is just the first prototype.

I've changed a lot of stuff and it works just fine frm my Laptop USB.

James. 

[drlava]

*sees selector in center of picture*
Oh James, you are your desire for infinite flexibility!  I'll be you can't wait to need to use that.

[James]

Well....

I have a rule when it comes to building things that *might* need to be fixed or modified.

I like to be able to disassemble my stuff without breaking anything!

Sometimes that makes a design really challenging.

My speakers are a good example.

James. 

PS. My first totally packaged 8 channel sound card DAC with hand-made 8 channel correction amp is almost done! I will be posting lots of pics soon!