I have been very interested with DAM1021 lately but sadly that the external master clocking scheme is somehow not available by the moment.
I'm planning as well to purchase Pink Faun I2S Bridge to have direct I2S out from PC to use with S03 and when external master clocking scheme of DAM1021 becomes available.
Thought this was the case... Thanks for clarifying.
Very interesting, game changer and brings the PC back into vogue again! You can actually connect direct to DAM1021. No provisions for external MCLK Input though for use with S03 Sync re-clocking but looks like a very high quality design with provisions for separate PSU connection
@DQ28 this could be something suitable for you
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@DQ28 this could be something suitable for you
I'm confused
I want to end up with a stand alone player, DAC valve output (maybe)/reclocking /Screen/HDD/BBB or similar/control with phone & touch screen. That way I can turn the damn computer off & play whatever resolution I want anytime I want & when the power goes down I'll just keep playing of my battery setup.
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Thought this was the case... Thanks for clarifying.
Very interesting, game changer and brings the PC back into vogue again! You can actually connect direct to DAM1021. No provisions for external MCLK Input though for use with S03 Sync re-clocking but looks like a very high quality design with provisions for separate PSU connection
@DQ28 this could be something suitable for you
Guess I would stick with 9018 for now. Think direct i2s is the trend regardless of the source used.
This maybe a little out topic but the bridge doesn't have a CKSEL output to switch the clock on S03, is it possible to get a CKSEL out determining from the incoming sampling rate? Any circuit for that?
Quite relevant actually but looks like we may have to do a bit of hack into the card for this. This pics of this card are a bit obscure. Are there a dual audio clocks on-board? Any further details of the card will be helpful
Its a C-Media chip possibly CM8888 with direct I2S out.
The chip itself only accept 24.576 clock and reclock i2s with internal PLL. With MCLK, LRCK, BCK, SDATA and DSDOE on output port.
Here is a better picture of it.
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hopefully, the direct outputs will do. The search goes on for something better for PCs!We have had a gtg yesterday for digital shoot out among; a Raspberry Pi B with RuneAudio, Banana Pi with JRiver and $10k Antipodes. All digital sources were usb into a Accuphase DC-37. Pre-Amp is Vitus and power amp is gryphon into a pair of Magico Q5.
Surprisingly with the majority, a $35 Pi with RuneAudio sounds more organic and very engaging than the $10k Antipodes DX server. In term of Timing and Impact bass, the Pi felts short s little. There is more airs in the Antipodes DX than Pi/RuneAudio.
The majority agreed from best to Ok:
1. $65 Banana Pi via JRiver
2. $10,000.00 Antipodes DX server
3. $35 Radpberry Pi via RuneAudio.
I must stressed, all were sounded amazing..!! Nonetheless, fews are more amazingly better than others when direct A/B on identical setup. We were all puzzling to why a $10k unit was unable to be better then $100 PC Card?!?! Will leave the thoughts to you're own free will!
Btw, how is this for isolation of an isolated balance transformer? Each stilpoint is worth $800 each...! Certainly debatable....!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Surprisingly with the majority, a $35 Pi with RuneAudio sounds more organic and very engaging than the $10k Antipodes DX server. In term of Timing and Impact bass, the Pi felts short s little. There is more airs in the Antipodes DX than Pi/RuneAudio.
The majority agreed from best to Ok:
1. $65 Banana Pi via JRiver
2. $10,000.00 Antipodes DX server
3. $35 Radpberry Pi via RuneAudio.
I must stressed, all were sounded amazing..!! Nonetheless, fews are more amazingly better than others when direct A/B on identical setup. We were all puzzling to why a $10k unit was unable to be better then $100 PC Card?!?! Will leave the thoughts to you're own free will!
Btw, how is this for isolation of an isolated balance transformer? Each stilpoint is worth $800 each...!
Certainly debatable....!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I'm confused
I want to end up with a stand alone player, DAC valve output (maybe)/reclocking /Screen/HDD/BBB or similar/control with phone & touch screen. That way I can turn the damn computer off & play whatever resolution I want anytime I want & when the power goes down I'll just keep playing of my battery setup.
Based on you previous posts, I was thinking you wanted an all-in-one system in a box - server, renderer, DAC and Amps. And you were trying to see if BBB could take a SATA drive but unfortunately it cannot. SDcard with limited storage is about the best it could go with locally served music. Again, the choice of BBB is the option now for direct I2S with native audio clocks instead of USB so betters most PC USB only solution for sound quality. So, I thought with this PC I2S bridge we can eliminate the USB part in the audio chain.... but it looks like the clocking scheme of the C-media chip is compromised!
if you want the PC dinosaur out altogether but want SATA drive then this new Banana Pro looks like another option but again clocking scheme appears compromised if your are shooting for highest possible SQ. Nevertheless, Chanh's test report indicates quite a capable device.
Very impressive Chanh, thanks for sharing! Another milestone in our quest
I am assuming your BBB-I2S-S03-DDDAC combo is better than the whole lot above?
Based on the past few posts, this is a good time to make this somewhat off-topic post
Madkid,
Thanks for more info on the Pink Faun I2S card. I've been using ESI Juli@ cards for this for some time, with significant mods on them. I took a quick look at the PF card a few months ago, but didn't dig in too deeply... too expensive, I thought.
Now Juli@ cards are getting rarer and supply and demand is driving them up towards the cost of the Pink Faun, so it's a good time to revisit.
With the help of your info and photo along with the Q&A on the Pink Faun site, I would say it has the following advantages over the Juli@:
1. As a single-purpose card, it has a simpler circuit and chip complement and likely has a simpler driver, unlike the multi-purpose Juli@.
2. It looks to be native PCI-E as opposed to the PCI-E version of the Juli@ which has a Tenor PCI->PCI-E bridge on-board
3. It already is designed for separate power, a mod needed to the Juli@ to make it sound its best.
4. It has what looks to be a VERY extensive power filtering network, again something that when done to the Juli@ improves it significantly (even with separate power).
5. It already has on-board selectable LVDS transmission (clearly seen in your photo, Madkid). That has to be added to the Juli@ with something like the Twisted Pear Transporter.
6. Finally, it is a 32-bit device versus the 24-bit limit of the Juli@.
OTOH, the Juli@ uses separate 22/24 clocks for the various sampling rates instead of deriving clocks via a PLL. And those clocks can be upgraded.
At the older prices of about $65USD used or $130USD new, modifying an ESI Juli@ was a pretty safe bet. But with them becoming rare and going for about 2x that, the PF I2S card is looking more interesting. And still, the fatal flaw with both is the 192 upper limit to the sampling rate. To do effective on-computer digital filtering for high-rate capable DACs (like the Soekris DAM DAC, the ESS9018, or the PCM5142), one really needs 384.
So does anyone know of a good 384-capable PCI or PCI-E or otherwise NON-USB I2S interface for a PC? Or is 192 the upper limit for the PCI interfaces?
I've looked at other computer sources that can output native I2S such as the BBB (of which I have a couple in-work to use as computer sources) and the Wandboard (ditto). But I expect the BBB will be taxed to upsample to 384 and the Wandboard takes a much more complex clock-feed interface and driver to reach 384.
I'm looking for something I can do real-time upsampling on, with a tool like SOX. Are there any other DIY-friendly sources, interface, or platforms people know of that can provide this?
Especially ones that can be interfaced to a reclocking, isolated interface like the S03 which is designed to source the master clock back to the I2S generating device?
TIA!
Greg in Mississippi
Madkid,
Thanks for more info on the Pink Faun I2S card. I've been using ESI Juli@ cards for this for some time, with significant mods on them. I took a quick look at the PF card a few months ago, but didn't dig in too deeply... too expensive, I thought.
Now Juli@ cards are getting rarer and supply and demand is driving them up towards the cost of the Pink Faun, so it's a good time to revisit.
With the help of your info and photo along with the Q&A on the Pink Faun site, I would say it has the following advantages over the Juli@:
1. As a single-purpose card, it has a simpler circuit and chip complement and likely has a simpler driver, unlike the multi-purpose Juli@.
2. It looks to be native PCI-E as opposed to the PCI-E version of the Juli@ which has a Tenor PCI->PCI-E bridge on-board
3. It already is designed for separate power, a mod needed to the Juli@ to make it sound its best.
4. It has what looks to be a VERY extensive power filtering network, again something that when done to the Juli@ improves it significantly (even with separate power).
5. It already has on-board selectable LVDS transmission (clearly seen in your photo, Madkid). That has to be added to the Juli@ with something like the Twisted Pear Transporter.
6. Finally, it is a 32-bit device versus the 24-bit limit of the Juli@.
OTOH, the Juli@ uses separate 22/24 clocks for the various sampling rates instead of deriving clocks via a PLL. And those clocks can be upgraded.
At the older prices of about $65USD used or $130USD new, modifying an ESI Juli@ was a pretty safe bet. But with them becoming rare and going for about 2x that, the PF I2S card is looking more interesting. And still, the fatal flaw with both is the 192 upper limit to the sampling rate. To do effective on-computer digital filtering for high-rate capable DACs (like the Soekris DAM DAC, the ESS9018, or the PCM5142), one really needs 384.
So does anyone know of a good 384-capable PCI or PCI-E or otherwise NON-USB I2S interface for a PC? Or is 192 the upper limit for the PCI interfaces?
I've looked at other computer sources that can output native I2S such as the BBB (of which I have a couple in-work to use as computer sources) and the Wandboard (ditto). But I expect the BBB will be taxed to upsample to 384 and the Wandboard takes a much more complex clock-feed interface and driver to reach 384.
I'm looking for something I can do real-time upsampling on, with a tool like SOX. Are there any other DIY-friendly sources, interface, or platforms people know of that can provide this?
Especially ones that can be interfaced to a reclocking, isolated interface like the S03 which is designed to source the master clock back to the I2S generating device?
TIA!
Greg in Mississippi
Is running the harddisk on a esata interface on the same computer you are processing music files to feed a dac a good idea? I can see using a shared file system, since you need to have the ethernet anyway so you can talk to the device and interact with it (plus a few useful niceties like ntp). Adding more devices to it is going to generate more noise and require a bigger psu maybe?
Unless playing the music from a local storage device sounds a lot better than reading the same file from a shared storage device it seems you would like keep the computer feeding the dac as lean as possible. Because if you are using i2s (without a "teleporter" type device) the cable length is going to dictate that it be in very close proximity to the dac board.
Unless playing the music from a local storage device sounds a lot better than reading the same file from a shared storage device it seems you would like keep the computer feeding the dac as lean as possible. Because if you are using i2s (without a "teleporter" type device) the cable length is going to dictate that it be in very close proximity to the dac board.
Very impressive Chanh, thanks for sharing! Another milestone in our quest
I am assuming your BBB-I2S-S03-DDDAC combo is better than the whole lot above?
I say it would be an unfair advantage for the above if any comments was posted..! The only thing I can fairly reveal is, audience could not believed how holography this BBB/S03/DDDAC is. Personally, I am struggling to find one does better within $20k DAC in highend world! I could be wrong and happy to be educated!!!!
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Greg, thanks for chiming in, very informative. I forgot all about Julia[sic]
Something caught my attention and I believe we have initiated some discussions elsewhere - agree with the need for 384khz music
But, I beg to differ in the way it is planned to be used:
1. Upsampled Cd quality files to X8
2. Native HiRes DxD 352.8k 24bit recordings
Personally, I reckon upsampling 44.1k to 352.8k to improve the sound quality is somewhat flawed concept regardless of the techniques. First you insert null points or estimates in between samples to increase the samples rates. Next, I believe most upsamplers also fudge with the bit depth to inflate them artificially to 24 or even 32-bit. And the resulting mess of artifacts generated need to be filtered out and all these require heaps of processing - as you can see from the hive of activity on Soren's R2R DAC thread.
The way I would use BBB or similarly capable devices is to feed direct DxD files or pre-upsampled files so that unit just renders it. Agree, it is big ask to get this general purpose embedded processors to do DSP intensive activities.
The other thing is the DAC side, only a simple filtering is needed to join the dots of a native 384k signal. No upsampling required, so we get practically a NOS type operation. In ESS DAC there is the OSF bypass option to get into NOS mode but wait, Miero pointed out sometime back it is not a good idea to turn it off as some filtering is still required. Yes, this is right as I indicated earlier we still need to join the dots. So do not bypass OSF but the DAC internally detects high Fs signals, disables upsampling and pares back on filtering accordingly - so we can truly say NOS mode
The other plan of mine to use DSD with a simple LPF and will be a breeze for low power CPUs. More labels are being churned out so why not take advantage of these.
Likewise, I am pushing the guys for EDEL network renderer for 384k capability. They have promised sometime in July this year. Current hardware is DxD ready and just remote firmware update when it becomes available. Hopefully, I can find a suitable media server that would stream DxD
Anyway, I am not trying to derail your plans. The whole thing is still debatable and happy to be proven wrong, just my two cents
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I say it would be an unfair advantage for the above if any comments was posted..! The only thing I can fairly reveal is, audience could not believed how holography this BBB/S03/DDDAC is. Personally, I am struggling to find one does better within $20k DAC in highend world! I could be wrong and happy to be educated!!!!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Thanks Chanh, just checking in
Was looking at the DDDAC pcm1794 and appears it has a similar architecture as R2R DAC so possibly the sound signature? So at some stage you or others could compare with Soren's DAC that is making its rounds as see how they go
We have the R2R DAC here. Based on what I have heard, it sounds completely away from DDDAC. Certainly not my cuppa tea. May be those having both can report their findings?!? Stijn?Thanks Chanh, just checking in
Was looking at the DDDAC pcm1794 and appears it has a similar architecture as R2R DAC so possibly the sound signature? So at some stage you or others could compare with Soren's DAC that is making its rounds as see how they go
There is a diy discrete DSD DAC, which I will be the first few recieving one.
Can't let the cat out just yet. Hopefully in time for this June WE's gtg in Paris, France.
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Acko,
A few comments/questions...
Now that you've let the cat out of the bag about your current intentions for the SuperCape eg built-in re-clocking, power management, etc. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that people who already own an S03 re-clocking board are better off with just going with the BBB-DSD board. Am I looking at this correctly?
Also, I mentioned earlier in the thread about wanting to use the OTTOII to switch between an Amanero and the BBB. Would synchronous clocking be possible in this setup with an S03? In my mind the way to do it would be to have OTTOII send LRCK SDATA and BCK via UFL to S03. Then have bypassed* 49,45 CLK sent back to both Amanero and BBB directly, without going back thru OTTOII. For this to work I'd have to have simultaneous clock coming from both the MCLK UFL and the CLK pin header (pin 7). Also the other challenge is CLK Select from both devices. I know the Amanero uses pins 1 and 11 for this. What about the BBB? Finally, the last challenge would be switching between both devices on the OTTOII. I'd assume some type of off/on switch could be used to select one or the other.
I haven't bought or completely looked at the BBB yet so this is probably a simple answer. I'm looking to use a linear 5v supply for the BBB. How do I tap into the board to do this?
Finally... It looks like most people are using the Botic distribution provided by Miero on his website due to ease of use in synchronous clocking. However, I'd like to use Rune Audio's offering if possible. Does their distribution integrate the Botic driver yet?
* I will only bypass divider if it has been proven to work well. Otherwise, Div/2 for me.
A few comments/questions...
Now that you've let the cat out of the bag about your current intentions for the SuperCape eg built-in re-clocking, power management, etc. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that people who already own an S03 re-clocking board are better off with just going with the BBB-DSD board. Am I looking at this correctly?
Also, I mentioned earlier in the thread about wanting to use the OTTOII to switch between an Amanero and the BBB. Would synchronous clocking be possible in this setup with an S03? In my mind the way to do it would be to have OTTOII send LRCK SDATA and BCK via UFL to S03. Then have bypassed* 49,45 CLK sent back to both Amanero and BBB directly, without going back thru OTTOII. For this to work I'd have to have simultaneous clock coming from both the MCLK UFL and the CLK pin header (pin 7). Also the other challenge is CLK Select from both devices. I know the Amanero uses pins 1 and 11 for this. What about the BBB? Finally, the last challenge would be switching between both devices on the OTTOII. I'd assume some type of off/on switch could be used to select one or the other.
I haven't bought or completely looked at the BBB yet so this is probably a simple answer. I'm looking to use a linear 5v supply for the BBB. How do I tap into the board to do this?
Finally... It looks like most people are using the Botic distribution provided by Miero on his website due to ease of use in synchronous clocking. However, I'd like to use Rune Audio's offering if possible. Does their distribution integrate the Botic driver yet?
* I will only bypass divider if it has been proven to work well. Otherwise, Div/2 for me.
If UPS keeps its promise, I’ll take delivery of the Soekris dac 2mrow. In all honesty I’m not expecting it to surpass my PCM1794 NOS dac overall and make it into my main system, even though it might be more analytical. The reasons I’m taking it on as a project is that I want to have a play with building FIR filters and I want to build it into a portable headphone DAP, for when I’m away from home.
Mull3t,
We are all in waiting for RuneAudio with Botic implementation for BBB. It has been sometime already and unfortunately the RPi kepts taking on the priority! I doubt if we will see it anytime soon.
You can get Mpad/MpoD/MDroid to work with current Botic driver 3.2 direct. The interface is great, excepts no automatic artworks/covers, Manual Tweaks must be carried out and is very time consuming.
I have tried virtually all there are, and have now settle on Banana Pro as JRiver MediaCenter streaming to Botic driver by direct Ethernet cable. This combo gives fantastic result for both SQ and user interface. This could change again when I can find one does better. So personally for me, enjoying the tunes in a laid back style without compromise the SQ.
Happy to assist you where's can!
Cheers.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
We are all in waiting for RuneAudio with Botic implementation for BBB. It has been sometime already and unfortunately the RPi kepts taking on the priority! I doubt if we will see it anytime soon.
You can get Mpad/MpoD/MDroid to work with current Botic driver 3.2 direct. The interface is great, excepts no automatic artworks/covers, Manual Tweaks must be carried out and is very time consuming.
I have tried virtually all there are, and have now settle on Banana Pro as JRiver MediaCenter streaming to Botic driver by direct Ethernet cable. This combo gives fantastic result for both SQ and user interface. This could change again when I can find one does better. So personally for me, enjoying the tunes in a laid back style without compromise the SQ.
Happy to assist you where's can!
Cheers.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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