• These commercial threads are for private transactions. diyAudio.com provides these forums for the convenience of our members, but makes no warranty nor assumes any responsibility. We do not vet any members, use of this facility is at your own risk. Customers can post any issues in those threads as long as it is done in a civil manner. All diyAudio rules about conduct apply and will be enforced.

New FIFO buffer for RPI/SBCs

This is *really* exciting - it was the last bit remaining to get my new integrated box started using Jeremy @ Folsom's 7297 in Dual Mono.

I read in a previous response that 15VDC or 5VDC could be provided to Katana power. Which one is preferred? And is regulated preferred, or would unregulated be fine, as long as it's clean? I want to use Jeremy's LOFI/DCS1 combo in my design, but that doesn't give me regulated power, and am wondering if I need a Jung/Didden SuperReg.

Lastly, if I were to use the older Isolator, what would be the preferred powering strategy?

Thanks and have a lot of fun on the vacation! Hope it's to Japan ;)
 
Since this is a Master DAC setting have to take that in consideration.


Regrading power Katana needs 5.5V maximum , but you can also feed the dual rail +- 15V for the opamp stage


You can feed 5.5V max to ess9038 as well (we have a small connector on board)


The only thing about power thats important , its low noise . We have hundreds of decoupling capacitors (sprinkled everywhere) on board and a few supercaps so it should not matter too much the impedance of the PSU


Going to Corsica this year :)
 
We took a lot of time to design the isolator ground. You have 2 grounds the "clean" and "dirty"


If those 2 grounds overlap they became in effect a capacitor coupling some noise from one system to another.


So we spend a lot of time making sure the grounds overlap is minimized to less than 2mm square.


I would say that isolating the grounds does improve the SQ but only marginally . Unless the rest of your system is very revealing.. you might not need it.


Linear PSU is not about Gdn is about noise. Using a low noise PSU is very important .
 
We took a lot of time to design the isolator ground. You have 2 grounds the "clean" and "dirty"


If those 2 grounds overlap they became in effect a capacitor coupling some noise from one system to another.


So we spend a lot of time making sure the grounds overlap is minimized to less than 2mm square.


I would say that isolating the grounds does improve the SQ but only marginally . Unless the rest of your system is very revealing.. you might not need it.


Linear PSU is not about Gdn is about noise. Using a low noise PSU is very important .

Thank you for the advice.
 
@cdsgames

1.
I forgot. Are there soldering pads on the boards which allow to solder power wires right to the boards?
Or. What'd be your suggestion to bypass the USB-C jacks?

2.
I saw your fancy acrylic case. It looks nice of course.
I'm wondering if when it comes to EMI/RFI protection a metal case would have been a better option? Have you ever considered it?
 
1. No soldering pads. Sorry but USB typeC has 3A capability it should be enough. I will still ask the team to find a way


2. All components (xtals , oscilators , MCU , DC/DC convertor are shielded) but you cannot see it on the pics I posted.


Again, a metal box is being worked on (will take a while)
 
1. No soldering pads. Sorry but USB typeC has 3A capability it should be enough. I will still ask the team to find a way


2. All components (xtals , oscilators , MCU , DC/DC convertor are shielded) but you cannot see it on the pics I posted.


Again, a metal box is being worked on (will take a while)



It's not about USB-C or whatever.
It's about having these cheap (or any) jacks and plugs in the path (power or audio) in general.

All these jacks/plugs degrade the performance. And it usually gets worse over time.

Bottom line.
Nothing beats a fully integrated solution with soldered wires.

And that's how I run my gear. ;)
 
Member
Joined 2003
Paid Member
@cdsgames / @soundcheck...

Do either of you know if the Katana driver has made its way into the latest PiCorePayer? 3.5.0, March 18? I assume not, but always good to ask the experts!

Also, on a 'fully integrated solution with soldered wires' for a setup like the Katana, see the attached on how I added my standard high-current-capability plug to the Boss 1.2 (which I liked a LOT... and which wasn't necessarily improved by the addition of a Kali, depending on your preferences. That's how good the clock and power implementation was... really looking forward to hearing the Katana based on that experience!)

Greg in Mississippi
 

Attachments

  • IMAG7113.jpg
    IMAG7113.jpg
    367.8 KB · Views: 390
No, it is not in pCP3.5.
But we are almost ready with pCP4.0 that will have support for Katana. The Allo guys are really generous and they will ship Katana cards to the pCP team so we can add the best possible support for the card in the new version.

So we are simply waiting for the cards to arrive, and then I think we can release our new pCP 4.0 with Katana support shortly thereafter.