Analog 5.1 USB Sound Card

[bash0r666]

Hey everybody,

at the moment I'm running OpenELEC on an old HTPC from about 6 years ago.
Since that thing is pretty big, I'm thinking about upgrading my system: I'm thinking about an Intel NUC.

The Intel NUC or any similar hardware most of the time just have a stereo audio jack and only support 5.1/7.1 digital audio via HDMI/Displayport. I'm still using an old 5.1 analog audio system (some old Logitech computer speakers) and I'd like to use them with the new OpenELEC hardware. Some day I will get a digital A/C receiver but for now I want to have an analog 5.1/7.1 audio output. Therefore I'd like to use an analog 5.1/7.1 USB sound card with OpenELEC.

1) Does OpenELEC support all/specific usb sound cards?
2) Will OpenELEC handle it like any other (intenal) sound card?
3) Does this cause any problems or will it work perfectly?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[chewitt]

1. Specific chipsets .. as defined by our Linux kernel configuration
2. Anything supported will be presented to Kodi the same as any other soundcard
3. Shouldn't be a problem but it depends on the device you end up with.
4. No we are not going to recommend anything specific .. this isn't our area of expertise either

[bash0r666]

Thank you for the helpful answer Now I can start looking for some suitable usb sound card.
I've searched to forums to get some information and I've found the following so far:

1) There seems to be a problem with omxplayer and ALSA (http://openelec.tv/forum/124-raspberry-p...not-videos). The problem occured with the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro USB.
Is omxplayer still the default player in OpenELEC adn will I therefore not be able to use the USB sound card with omxplayer? Does this apply to all usb sound cards?

2) Do I need to make sure that the usb sound card support bitstream? http://openelec.tv/forum/68-audio/78476-...ound-sound

I don't really know what's important to make it work properly.
I had a closer look at the ASUS Xonar U5 with chipset C-Media CM6631A.

[chewitt]

omxplayer is a pi thing so that's probably not relevant .. everything else (and the second generation pi) uses the default kodi player. If you want to use passthrough audio and video formats (e.g. HD audio) you will need a bitstream/passthrough capability.

[bash0r666]

Thank you for clearing that up!
The best would be to select a USB sound card which is supported by ALSA, correct?
Therefore I should have a look at http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Main