[atoav]

Ad the part about cables:

If you have long cable runs I'd use an optical signal or a balanced line signal (this is why professional audio gear has balanced outputs and inputs with TRS 6.3mm or XLR-3 connectors).

There are simple adapters that allow you to send 4 balanced audio signals over existing ethernet connections. With CAT6 you can easily push balanced signals over a kilometer (long beyond the 100m treshold of actual CAT6 ethernet) without any noticable degradation.

If you have unbalanced signals from weak sources (vinyl needle?) you should keep the cable runs short, but even if the driver is good it can help to add a balun (passive or active) to run the thing balanced when the cable run is longer than 10 meters or is in a harsh environment (e.g. power chords with bursty loads emitting EMF).