One of the biggest problems I faced in this first year of my walk through was unreliable and variant stereo equipment. All my audio was running through a hodge podge of mp3/ipod, cd, second hand stereos and speakers.

I was trying to come up with the most reliable system I could think of to operate the audio for next years haunt. I have some ideas, but have no idea how (or if) it can be implemented.

What I would like to have would be a PC setup with each different digital file loaded up and running on a loop and pipe each audio to different speakers in the section of the haunt that uses that track. At this point, I am not looking to incorporate triggered audio or prop specific audio. I would leave that to the individual props.

But to have my outside speakers playing my thunder and lightning track, my main haunt speakers playing my ambient general haunt "soundtrack", my forest to be playing my outdoor "crickets" soundtrack, my darkest room playing my "whisper" track, etc.

Thoughts? Can this be done with a single sound card with multiple outputs (does this exist)? Multiple sound cards in the same PC (if so, how many can you put in one PC)? What software could you use?

Any help here would be greatly appreciated.