Re-manufacturing Dolby & DTS 5.1 Surround Sound

[rogerrever]

Noob -- 1st time poster

Recently given a Spherex Xbox 5.1 surround system amp/decoder/bass module...

It lacks the surround speakers and, most importantly, the IR remote & display module which makes it pretty much useless.

Since it has optical & coaxial digital inputs (and some intriguing circuitry) I am wondering if it is feasible to salvage/cannibalize the amp & decoder circuits, to incorporate into existing home theater system which is currently only stereo (w/synthesized, i.e. non-dolby/DTS surround sound).

I have not been able to locate any schematics, wiring/block diag.s etc so would probably have to fabricate those myself.

Am thinking that I could probably, with p/n research of the individual chips etc, ID the circuits and their enabling I/Ps and power requirements.

Here is a review of the system w/specs: http://theaudiocritic.com/plog/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=7&blogId=1

Any info/advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanx fer takin the time to read (and hopefully, reply to) this


Sincerely,

Roger

 

[chrisb]

Is the original manufacturer defunct?
If not, could they not help you out?

 

[rogerrever]

chrisb, yes the mfg has been out of business for some time; Spherex (Canadian co., also made an Xbox media chair) was part of Audio Products Int'l (API) and were acquired by Klipsch.

 

[LazyH]

Do you have the id numbers for the ic's? That might give a better idea of what you'd be capable of with those parts.

 

[rogerrever]

Audio DSP Part # & Info

Haven't had time to tear into this project... thought that I'd start w/the DSP circuit board (no disassembly required to get at it) but the farthest I've gotten is a lil research on the CPU/Floating-Point Audio DSP (surround sound processor?).

Got this off of the installed chip: Texas Instruments TMS320DA601-A00-2YP (also has this: C20-45FFK3T, batch or serial no?).

The DA610/601 is a TI Aureus floating-point audio digital signal processor with a C67x (C6x?)core. It has on-chip peripherals needed to connect to audio codecs for a 5.1 or 7.1 system and is used in the YAMAHA high-end receivers: RX-V1400, RX-V2400, RX-V1600, RX-V2600, and RX-V2500.

I've downloaded some documents, which may or may not be of any use (haven't had time to read them yet...):

TMS320C6x Assy. Language Tools User Guide
TMS320C6x Optimizing C Compiler User Guide
TMS320C62xC67x Technical Brief
TMS320C6000 DSP External Memory Interface (EMIF) Reference Guide
TMS320C6701 floating point DSP
Porting GCC to the TMS320-C6000 DSP Architecture​

If anyone is interested, I'm attaching a couple of PDFs w/some gen'l info that I've collected from the web -- mostly on the DSP but a lil bout the unit itself.
OOPS, one file upload returned an error -- too large for file type

so​

here is the link​

http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tms320c6701.pdf​

Tonight and, hopefully, tomorrow I’m going to open ‘er up, and maybe filet er a bit to get some more P/Ns & mfgs. What I’m looking for are supply voltages and control signals since apparently you can’t even turn it on w/out the IR remote… (Which I’m lacking as well as the display unit and original speakers).

I’m trying to determine if, with the purchase of a small display unit, it would be feasible to salvage the surround processing, audio amp(s), power supply, etc. and maybe add some DIY (omnipolar?) rear speakers to build my own surround sound system (decoder/amplifier) for my HTPC.

Thanx (especially to Chrisb & LazyH) fer takin the time to read and reply,

Take care​

Sincerely,
Roger​

p.s. probably MUCH more feasible to just buy a USB DAC that does the surround sound decoding (I wonder if there is such a thing @ a reasonable price?) and build my amp(s) & speakers -- RRR