I see a lot of USB bashing, some of it deserved. But USB2 provides a theoretical bandwidth of 480 MB/Sec, which is easily enough for 250 mono audio streams at 44.1K/24 bit. This assumes nobody else is using that hub...
Math:
mono stream at 44.1K/24bit:
44100 words/sec x 24 bits/word = 1058400 bits/sec per channel
480 Mbits/sec divided by 1.0584 Mbits/sec = 453 channels
(theoretical limit, assuming only audio is using USB).
You can scale this; if you double the sample rate to 88.2KHz, you're limited to only 226 channels.
To be fair, 10 to 15% of this is devoted to things like transmission overhead (data packeting uses some of those bits to identify who the data came from and where it's going). So, knock 15% off of 226 channels, and you're down to only about 192 channels of 88.2K/24bit.
I've found that to be plenty for my work. If someone really needs more than 100 channels, they'd probably opt to get something more than a prosumer interface, like a MADI setup. At least in a rational sense...
Last edited by Philbo King; 02-13-2018 at 03:08 PM.
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