What? Where? I don't understand... Is it possible to change the WaveIO firmware? How?
No, you do not change the firmware, it's just a user-setting.
So go to START>search> (find)TUSBAUDIO controle panel, click it and look under 'tab' if your setting there is: "2 channels 24bits". If not, change it to that line.
That's it.
There's no going back to the wave IO/MacBook setup I used previously, after listening to I2S direct to the DDDAC mainboard. To me it's putting another piece of hardware (wave board) into the replay chain unnecessarily (assuming you can setup a Raspberry Pi). You can then use a wired or wireless connection to communicate with the Pi, streaming your music from a NAS drive.
Sorry, but I totally don't get this... My WaveIO board does not have anything labelled "start"... are we talking about the same thing?
Hello,
BUT in the Dutch article for which Doede did give us the link the writer tells us he doesnt use his Aurender anymore.
It seems not everybody can make something that works right of the box.
The aurender is easy to use but if there is something that will give a better sound i am willing to try lol.
By the way i did read on French site that the selectronic shop there that sells R core is having financial problems. Some people are waiting for orders long time some say no problem. Probably depending on wat they have in stock.
greetings, Eduard
LOL! My computer has no such menu... In fact, I haven't seen or used any Windows computer for a long time. Do people still use this stuff? I don't know anyone around here who does; it's all Linux and fruit machines here. How do I get to the WaveIO settings using one of those? The WaveIO manual does not explain the software part.
I am pretty sure Ian's FIFO will do a good job between the WaveIO and the DDDAC, as does the Kali. Just give it a try, it will make you smile
Hi Doede/All, I have got my Allo Sparky/Kali boards with its own power supply.
Red board has i2s input connection pins but there are 2 options, one side has all black jumper input pins (Vdd out -3.3V (which i have already shifted to a 5V regulator on board), data, LRC, BCK, MCK) and this I connect to the WaveIO using the ribbon jumper cable && the other side has solderable pins which stick out and the arrangement is Vdd Out (3.3V), GND, BCK, LR, DAT. Now the red board says use only one. So if I have to connect the i2s of the board to the i2s inputs of the Kali, Should I use the black jumper ones or the solderable ones?
Considering that all the jumper pins have their other terminal as GND, does it mean that on one side of the jumper cable will connect to the corresponding pin of the Kali and the other side of the jumper cable will connect to both Vdd Out/GND, data/GND, LRC/GND, BCK/GND, MCK (i understand that it would not be connected to kali as it is only for WaveIO)??
The power supply for the WaveIO board is 5V/1A as per Doede's design. The required specifications on Kali/Sparky is 5V/2-3A. So I am guessing, the supply that I use with WaveIO will not work to power Sparky/Kali?
Can someone please share their connections from Red Board to Kali? Mbrennwa, pls share the pins you use on Kali board from the 40Pin connector to connect it properly please?
Another doubt, Say i use the sparky SBC and load it with Volumio Player OS, make successful connections from Kali to DDDAC. When I stream audio from my wifi to Sparky/Kali, how will it know that the audio signal has to be passed on to the DDDAC which has been connected to the Kali via i2s connection??
Will there be no questions of any drivers here that need to be loaded on the Sparky to make it detect the DAC? But then when I think, Sparky is not seeing the DAC anyways since we are not connecting the DDDAC via usb??
How will this communication happen?
Will there be no questions of any drivers here that need to be loaded on the Sparky to make it detect the DAC? But then when I think, Sparky is not seeing the DAC anyways since we are not connecting the DDDAC via usb??
How will this communication happen?
The pin header and the solder sticks are connected one-to-one on the DDDAC board, so it shouldn't matter which ones you use. I used the pin header because it provides individual GND connections for all I2S signals, and I wanted to used individual signal return (GND) lines for each I2S signal.
Did you upgrade your red board with the 1/2 delay modification?
Note that the MCLK pin on the DDDAC are unconnected on the DDDAC baord. I don't really know why the DDDAC has this pin. Anyway, there is no point in connecting anything to the MCLK pin on the DDDAC.
Not sure if I got this right, but you should make sure the Kali-GND and the DDDAC-GND are connected well. One shared connection for all I2S lines might work (I went for individual GND connections, as written above).
Not sure about the Sparky, but my standalone Kali works fine with the Vdd from the DDDAC. In the end I used a separate 5V DC supply for the Kali using a 7805 on the PSU I made for the Arduino/TVC that also lives in my DDDAC.
I didn't use the 5V supply for the WaveIO (I also have the Doede design) because the USB side of the WaveIO should not be referenced to the DDDAC GND (see a few posts back...). Connecting the WaveIO PSU to the Kali/DDDAC would inject noise from the USB connection to the DDDAC-GND. If you don't use the WaveIO/USB input, you might just give the Doede PSU a try on the Sparky/Kali.
I attached a photo, which essentially shows that I did a pretty messy job. However, I managed to keep the I2S wires short, and with dedicated signal returns for all I2S lines. The Kali pinout is available on the Allo website. I figured out the GND connections on the Kali by checking the pins for a connection to the 0V pin on the Kali. You could also check the pinout on the RPi/Sparky for the I2S and GND pins.
Just give it a try -- it's not that difficult, and it sounds great!
Attachments
It's just a matter of configuring Volumio correctly. There's a setting for the DAC to be used, and there's a "generic I2S DAC" choice. That should work, I guess.
Uhm, well, just look at the Allo pinout PDF I linked in my previous post. There isn't anything else to it.
Really great. Yes, it is/
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Problems with my DDDAc build
I have been using and enjoying the DAC for around 2 years when I started to notice the output dropping over a few weeks and then the DAC died completely.
The build is standard with a 13V regulated power supply from an old CDP(Sony X77 ES).
A friend who has years of experience help me to check the voltages and found
that the 8V regulators that feed the analogue section were dead (on both sides .) We replaced the regulators but there are still problems.
R1 on runs very hot, voltage after R2 is just over 3V and just about the same after the 8V regulators. Channels measure similar but with some variation.
Any ideas on what could be faulty. I suspect that it could be the Dac chips themselves and are willing to order a new board(with new upgrades) but are dreading the idea - previously I waited 3 months for the DAC board to arrive because of the pathetic postal services in South Africa.
Any suggestions or ideas?
Thanks in advance
I have been using and enjoying the DAC for around 2 years when I started to notice the output dropping over a few weeks and then the DAC died completely.
The build is standard with a 13V regulated power supply from an old CDP(Sony X77 ES).
A friend who has years of experience help me to check the voltages and found
that the 8V regulators that feed the analogue section were dead (on both sides .) We replaced the regulators but there are still problems.
R1 on runs very hot, voltage after R2 is just over 3V and just about the same after the 8V regulators. Channels measure similar but with some variation.
Any ideas on what could be faulty. I suspect that it could be the Dac chips themselves and are willing to order a new board(with new upgrades) but are dreading the idea - previously I waited 3 months for the DAC board to arrive because of the pathetic postal services in South Africa.
Any suggestions or ideas?
Thanks in advance
Hey Mbrennwa - updates from my end. Sparky SBC/Kali setup done with jumper wires going from i2s to DDDAC's i2s. Figured out the connection pins from Allo's website. Used Volumio software for playback. Setup then is:
Sparky Single Board Computer's USB with FLAC music -> Kali ->i2s Connection ->DDDAC.
Observations :
- Getting the same crackling sound that you are getting.
- I use the Red motherboard too but never did the 1/2 clock mod. I already have the 5V regulator in place of the 3.3V original one.
- I also get the crackling sound from one channel, i.e., left channel in my case.
- Kali's Lock LED is absolutely stable.
Conclusion 1: It is not a fault with your DAC motherboard since I am getting the exact same issues as yours.
Now I started to find other possible solutions as in-line resistors did you no good so I dont even want to attempt that solution. Re-reading the posts on this subject, I paid attention to ed linssen's post "mbrenwa
You could look at the driver settings of the WIO in your pc and change the freq. settings from 32 to 24bits. It solved this same proplem in my setup."
Now I went inside the mixer of my sparky linux player with volumio loaded on it and played a few songs with different bit depths - 16bits & 24bits with various sampling rates till 192Khz. You can read the result of the outputs below:
Command passed: volumio@volumio:~$ cat /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/sub0/hw_params
Result:
access: RW_INTERLEAVED
format: S32_LE
subformat: STD
channels: 2
rate: 44100 (44100/1)
period_size: 2048
buffer_size: 8192
Notice the part highlighted in bold, it shows that irrespective of whatever bit depth I played, the volumio/Alsamixer of Linux is up-converting the bit depth from 16/24 bits to 32bits.
I reckon if ed linssen could solve this by setting the WaveIO to restrict to 24bits only and not let it go to 32bits, if I can make the same settings to happen in volumio/sparky settings, it could be sorted and maybe we dint have to think of changing from the Red to the Blue main board.
Can anyone here please help me in how to restrict the bit-depth not beyond 24bits? There are a few people also complaining of the auto-conversion here
https://volumio.org/forum/resampling-t659.html
I have also read concepts on MSB/LSB, left justified/right justified in i2s, etc. that could have a connection with this problem, but I am not sure how to solve it. I am guessing that if I am able to play all my audio files on an 'as-is' basis, it would be fine.
If after R1 and r2 the voltage drops that dramatically, the load is too high, so your suggestion there is a short after the LF80 is correct. A new board would be best. I know SA mail is terrible. I used it once and half of the content (Computer gear) was stolen out of the box
may be aks for UPS or DHL shipment? will cost a tad more, but probably secure..
Hmmmm. If I only knew how to get access to my WaveIO and change the settings... how on earth can I do this without a Windows computer?
But then again I am not sure the 24/32 bit setting really is the problem. With my WaveIO connected directly to the DDDAC I get no cracking at all. If I insert the Kali for I2S reclocking, the data stream (bits) should not be changed at all, except that bits are clocked with less jitter. If the WaveIO outputs 32 bits, the Kali will also output 32 bits (and the same for 24 bits). I don't see how changing the format of the WaveIO data output could change anything related to the Kali. Or am I misunderstanding how the Kali works?
Without the 1/2 clock mod, you are essentially driving the I2S output of the Kali into the RC delay circuit (the crude 1/2 clock delay method used on the read boards). Could it be the Kali is a bit more sensitive to the impedance it sees on its output than the WaveIO?
Did you use individual signal returns for all your I2S connections between Kali and DDDAC? How long are the cables? Do you have a photo?