The age of Alexa is a good reason to consider getting a mixer

[DoubleTap]

So I bought this little mixer on Amazon for $55:
https://www.amazon.com/Rolls-MX51S-Four-Channel-Stereo-Mixer/dp/B0002BG2S6/

I work from home and I have a decent audio setup in my home office.

7.1 surround sound for gaming, streaming music and I can switch to the Chromecast/Firestick for movies.

I also have an Amazon Echo and a CD changer with a decent CD collection (500ish)

Maybe this is just me, but I never liked that I had to switch the receiver over to another input to listen to another device. That effectively muted my PC. Some times I like to listen to music, surf the news, pause the music to watch a video clip, etc.

I've also seen a lot of people complain that as cool and useful as Amazon Alexa is, it basically works best as an audio overlay, not a dedicated, exclusive device.

Anyway, I decided to experiment and I ordered this little 4ch stereo mixer. Fair warning that one of the channels uses a single XLR connection - I think you could use RCA to XLR for a stereo, unbalanced input, but I have not tried it. 2-3 channels is enough for me.

So right now, I have my CD Changer (analog out) going to one channel and the Echo Input going to another.

The mixer goes to the 3.5mm input on the front of my Xonar U7 (USB, external DAC/Sound card) - I think you will get better results from an external/USB device as I've always found the onboard input connections to be noisy. I can play the PC + Mixer sound through either the built in headphone amp or send it all out to the speakers through HDMI

It's very freeing to be able to just play something on any device or source and have it work without having to constantly juggle inputs. The noise floor is very low, but you can hear it faintly on the headphones. It goes away if I pull the 3.5mm cable out of the Xonar. The massive increase in convenience and accessibility more than makes up for a very minor ding to "fidelity".

If you're someone who enjoys multiple devices or inputs, do yourself a favor and try getting them all online at the same time and see how much it changes your experience.