Home listening setup questions

[KD2DLL]

I listen to some streams online(In addition to my scanners). I want to set up multiple speakers in my room to stream different feeds from my laptop. Would like to be able to set it up to stream each feed to its own speakers. What I plan to do is place all the speakers in different locations so I can tell from the direction what feed im hearing. How can I set this up? My laptop has only 1 speaker port so whats some peoples ideas? Also, I will need a way to assign each feed to certain speakers from my computer(some kind of mixer program or such). Im looking at possibly 5-8 different feeds at a time.

So far my thoughts are to buy a usb hub. One of these two(or if anyone suggests one):
Amazon.com: Belkin 2 in 1 USB 2.0 7-PORT HUB: Electronics
Amazon.com: Satechi 12 Port USB Hub with Power Adapter & 2 Control Switches: Electronics

Then buy a few of these(or something similar):
Amazon.com: HDE 7.1 Channel USB External Sound Card Audio Adapter: Electronics

And then getting the speakers and a bunch of audio wires to run to the speakers from the setup.

Any ideas on what software to use to set up each stream on the computer to go only to the speakers I choose?

This all is going to be on a computer dedicated to just this and then programming my scanner and minitor when needed.

Any input is greatly appreciated. And of course when its all finished, I will post pictures!

Note to admins: Sorry if this is your wrong category, please move it if needed

 

[jsncrso]

Won't work. Although you can do certain types of forwarding to audio sources in Windows, you can't have multiple instances of the same program forward to different speakers. (For example you can set which audio source you want to use in VLC but it applies to every instance of that player) Your best bet is just to use ScannerLive.

 

[mitzip]

Windows users asking the same question you are.
http://superuser.com/questions/73921/assigning-programs-to-specific-audio-outputs-in-windows-7

The bottom post mentions mplayer. I highly recommend, as it can accept files or streams as input and output to specific device output.

Also, JACK audio connection kit will allow the mixing flexibility I think you need. It may only be available on Linux though.

No matter what, I think you're looking at a minimum of two sound cards. Depending on how many outputs they have.

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Sent from my tablet. Please excuse my brevity, spelling and grammar.