USB2 Multichannel Audio reference design

[hannodewind]

Hi,

I am new to XMOS and developement.
I am an electronic engineering student doing my final year project. I need a USB audio interface capable of recording from 6 microphones/line in (I can build my own pre-amps). I need sampling rates of at least 44.1kHz/per channel (not shared) and the channels must preferably be sampled simultaneously.

I have looked over the USB2 Multichannel audio reference design and its documents. This might be a stupid question, but I would rather be safe than sorry.

- Are the sampling rates for each channel individually and not shared? (say 44.1kHz/channel and not 44.1kHz/6channels=7.31kHz. I know the latter sounds absurd cause the sampling rate per channel is not high enough for audio, some people actually sell stuff like that).

- And does the codec sample the inputs simultaneously? (I need phase information from the input signals).

- Is it easy to setup? Do I have to program it first or can I just use it plug and play with the supplied drivers and my Win7 machine would recognize it as a soundcard? The reason I ask is because I do not have too much time to try and figure this board out first.

Thank you!