Okay, so I’ve been messing around with audio stuff lately, and I wanted to see if I could get two USB-C DACs working at the same time on my computer. You know, for… reasons. Don’t judge.
The Idea
I had these two little USB-C dongles that convert digital audio to analog, so you can plug in your headphones. They’re pretty basic, nothing fancy. My thought was, “Can I just plug them both in and have, like, double the audio?” I know, I know, it’s probably not how it works, but I had to try, right?
The Setup
First, I grabbed my laptop. It’s got a couple of USB-C ports, so that’s perfect. Then, I found those two DACs. One was a cheap one I got online, the other came with my phone. Next, I plugged them both in. My computer (it’s running Windows, by the way) made that little “ding” sound, so I knew it recognized them.
I opened the control panel from my computer, selected Sound and saw listed devices.
The Experiment
- I went into the sound settings to see what was going on.
- Sure enough, both DACs showed up as audio devices.
- I tried playing some music and selecting one DAC as the output. Worked fine.
- Then, I switched to the other DAC. Also worked fine.
So far, so good. But I wanted both to work at the same time. This is where it got tricky.
The Roadblock
Windows, in its infinite wisdom, only lets you choose one default audio device at a time. So, I couldn’t just tell it to play through both DACs. Bummer.
The (Partial) Solution
I remembered there’s some software out there that lets you mess with audio routing. downloaded one of the software. And installed it.
After some fiddling around (and a few crashes, I’m not gonna lie), I managed to get it to output audio to both DACs simultaneously! It was kinda messy, and there was a slight delay between them, but hey, it worked!
The Conclusion
So, can you use two USB-C DACs at the same time? Technically, yes, but it’s not straightforward. You’ll need some extra software and be prepared for some potential headaches. Is it worth it? Probably not, unless you have a very specific (and probably weird) reason for doing it. But hey, it was a fun little experiment!
For me, I am using two DACs for the audio output to the different speakers. It is working!