I want to use a single DAC with 2 laptops.

[RHO]

I want to use my work laptop and my personal laptop, in my home office, for audio playback.
Most of the time I will be using my personal laptop for streaming audio or playing FLACs from the HDD.
But on occasion I have an online meeting and want to switch to the input for the DAC to the work laptop. (HP amp is connected to the DAC)
Would a simple USB switch work? (without loss in audio quality when listening to music)
I was thinking about a 2->4 USB 3 switch. On one side the 2 laptops will be connected. On the other side I will connect the receivers for keyboard, mouse and a USB mic and the DAC.
This way I can easily switch between the 2 laptops. (1 push on the button)
Something I'm worried about is the the audio stream gets interrupted by every keystroke or mouse click.

An other option would be to have only the DAC routed to a switch between the 2 laptops. Would I be able to use the same type of USB switch? (I guess I could just leave to remaining 3 inputs unused)

 

[voodooless]

Something I'm worried about is the the audio stream gets interrupted by every keystroke or mouse click.

What? Why would you be worried about that?

Why not just get a streamer?

 

[RHO]

What? Why would you be worried about that?

Why not just get a streamer?

OK, so no worries about the data over USB then.

A streamer wouln't help.
I don't want to switch headphones (and mics) when switching from one laptop to the other. So a streamer would result in the same situation: listening to music -> meeting starts -> swapping headphones for headset -> end meeting -> swapping headphones ...
And every time stopping the music stream because the headphones are still playing music or in the future, my nearfield monitors keep playing music...
If the USB switch works that all is solved with 1 button.
I've had some issues with the dac connected to a hub in the past. So I'm a bit worried I will run into the some problems.

 

[mrbungle]

I think the most seamless way is having an XLR switch and a cheap secondary DAC. My setup is MOTU M2 on work Laptop, RME on Raspberry PI streamer for Roon and Hidisz S9 Pro to a cheap Anker USB-C hub I can plug into my iPad. Switch goes into a Topping A90. USB Switches exist, but I never found one that does all I need.

 

[RHO]

I think the most seamless way is having an XLR switch and a cheap secondary DAC. My setup is MOTU M2 on work Laptop, RME on Raspberry PI streamer for Roon and Hidisz S9 Pro to a cheap Anker USB-C hub I can plug into my iPad. Switch goes into a Topping A90. USB Switches exist, but I never found one that does all I need.

I was considering that.
It would indeed work if I would only want to switch audio between the laptops ... which I now think of is exactly what I want. I don't need to switch mouse and keyboard when I switch audio.
I can just as well run a 3.5m to RCA (or XLR) cable from the work laptop to an RCA/XLR switch. Sound quality doesn't need to be perfect for meetings. So no worries there.

 

[maverickronin]

And every time stopping the music stream because the headphones are still playing music or in the future, my nearfield monitors keep playing music...
If the USB switch works that all is solved with 1 button.

Depending on your player software and it's output mode it may pause, stop, switch to the internal DAC, or just crash when it's output device disappears.

I use USB to S/PDIF bridges and a composite video switcher to do basically the same thing.

Personal PC > USB >-------------------- ADI-2 DAC USB Input
                                        ADI-2 DAC Coax Input
                                        |   
                          Coax Switch > |
                          |       |
Work PC > S/PDIF Bridge > |       |
                                  |
Nintendo Switch > S/PDIF Bridge > |

When leaving the ADI-2's input in auto mode coax or optical takes priority over USB. I shorted an unused input on the Coax switcher to make a reliable "mute" function which activates the USB input on the ADI-2 DAC. All sources can play at the same time without the host hardware noticing what goes on downstream and I can switch between them all with one button press.

If you DAC's input switching doesn't behave like that, then you could just use a S/PDIF bridge on each laptop.

 

[storing]

From your description it sort of sounds like your personal laptop will be always on? You could run an AirPlay server on it then connect the work laptop via TuneBlade (or another AP client), but that does require proper network connections to get latency low enough to be usable for video and might not fix the 'have to stop audio streaming' issue (I don't recall if any of the open source i.e. free AP receivers have an option to mute all other audio when a client connects).

 

[RHO]

I think an analog audio switch between DAC and HP/pre-amp will do. I can switch between the analog signal coming from the DAC and the hp out from the work laptop to the input on the HP/pre-amp.
No need to switch USB signals in that situation and I can keep my headphones on. Only issue could be the volume. I need to watch the volume settings on the work-laptop when switching.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

An other option would be to have only the DAC routed to a switch between the 2 laptops. Would I be able to use the same type of USB switch? (I guess I could just leave to remaining 3 inputs unused)

I have done this with a 1-2 switch and suggest that to minimize any interaction with other devices.

 

[RHO]

I have done this with a 1-2 switch and suggest that to minimize any interaction with other devices.

I'm still tempted to go for this option.
Any recommendations for a specific type of switch?

 

[mrbungle]

The Plugable one seemed fine to me. 20$ IIRC. I didn’t go for it since Roon is blocked by the work firewall anyways and need the MOTU for the mic. I should have probably mentioned that. The switch also didn’t support charging from the main dock, but I could have gotten around that.

But it is nice to have it instantly switching the sound without depending on software catching up.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I'm still tempted to go for this option.
Any recommendations for a specific type of switch?

Nope. I bought the first nice looking one I found. https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Comp...ocphy=9067609&hvtargid=pla-564233740503&psc=1

 

[RHO]

Nope. I bought the first nice looking one I found. https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Comp...ocphy=9067609&hvtargid=pla-564233740503&psc=1

I bought the sam one.

What? Why would you be worried about that?

As ou can see it doesn't work as intended. Quite a bit of keystrokes ar missing. Very annoying.
Also not all mouse-clicks are caught.
I can try with a different USB hub. Hopefully that works better.
I wouldn't trst switching the USB siga to the DAC with this thing. So, I now wnt for the analog headphone output to an anaaudio switch, which is put between the dac-utput/laptop HP output and the HP-amp.
(I didn't fix the missing keystrkes )

Edit: I just switched the USB hub. It looks like the other USB hub was the culprit. No more missing keystrokes or mouse clicks. So my cheapest USB hub works fine and my most expensive one is junk. Nice...