Hello All,
Thanks for the replies. I am using a newer external USB card that uses the CMedia CMI6620 chipset. The link is here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K1O ... ge_o05_s00 I currently have ArchLinux installed on my Odroid and it works pretty well. When I run aplay -L the card shows up with all its PCM options. I can get speaker test to work fine to locate the analog outputs just fine. I recognize that this particular C-Media chip is not listed in the ALSA matrix. But since I can see it all and get surround sound to work it seems like I should be able to figure it out. Alas, I am not skilled enough I fear.
I have been successful in getting it to playback in surround sound using the PCM surround51 per the website I mentioned in the initial post - but only so long as the music file is load on the SD card internally. I am using the analog outputs and going out to a tri-amped setup. Two channels each for the sub woofers, mids and treble.
What I am having trouble with is getting the system to input audio from an external source through the USB card line-in, get processed by ecasound and then output through the analog outputs.
I am fairly comfortable with the command line but I fear my understanding of the inner workings of ALSA are limited.
Thanks, James