X2Hi All
Anyone tried feeding a dedicated 5V supply into the Amanero board yet?
I’m using one of these to power mine.
http://rockgrotto.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=talk&action=display&thread=7327
It was developed by SandyK (A member here) specifically to power USB devices and boy does it deliver SQ wise.
A really noticeable and obvious jump in SQ.
I did read that it was not going to be possible to use such devices but mine is really singing with it.
May work for others also
The Amanero works well and sounds good in my Atom based W7 foobar/Jriver Jplay or Slacko puppy set up with no issues or drop outs whatsoever.
Good work Alex
Thanks firstly to Korben69 for getting us organised for the GB
And a big thanks to Domenico for making this board available at such a good price
Several members, including myself, have done the same with excellent results.
Whetting the appetite for more "intrusive" methods!
Hi
Nice to know that it’s not just me hearing things.
I read through an interesting thread re the Amanero Board over on RG which is where I had the heads up to try the power injector.
Here is the thread should anyone care to pass by.
http://rockgrotto.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=talk&action=display&thread=8441
Nice to know that it’s not just me hearing things.
I read through an interesting thread re the Amanero Board over on RG which is where I had the heads up to try the power injector.
Here is the thread should anyone care to pass by.
http://rockgrotto.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=talk&action=display&thread=8441
I've received my nice little package from Amanero.
Will be hooking it up to my Buffalo next week, hopefully, but in the mean time I plugged in the USB to check functionality with a Windows 7 machine and all seems to be working as expected.
Many thanks to Domenico
Hi
I hope you will post some pictures of the wiring as i have buffalo 2 also.
cheers
kp93300
I heard the Amanero device today with Buffalo-III Dac. It works perfectly, also with DSD DoP (DSD over PCM) Bitstreaming with J. River Mediacenter 18.
With my previous setup: A Musiland Monitor 03 US with tapped I2S lines feeding the DAC - I had very low, but audible, noise injected through GND/Signal line. With this setup I had to use a NVE715 isolator to get rid of noise.
Amanero board has much 'cleaner' power with reduced (non audible) noise level. I am now not using the NVE715 isolator and Amanero board subjectively still sounds 'cleaner'. Just perfekt !
The only issue I have is: When bitstreaming DSD I have a strong 'plop' noise in speakers when starting and stopping playback. Same when changing volume on my preamp (relais switched resistor volume control) during DSD playback. That happens only with DSD DoP bitstreaming, not with PCM I2S playback.
This indicates that Bufallo-III DAC generates a DC offset on DAC-output when being fed with DSD from J.River / Amanero board.
I wonder why, and if it is J.River, Amanero or Buffalo-III problem.
Did someone test DSD with Amanero & Buffalo DAC ? Interested to hear your experiences....
With my previous setup: A Musiland Monitor 03 US with tapped I2S lines feeding the DAC - I had very low, but audible, noise injected through GND/Signal line. With this setup I had to use a NVE715 isolator to get rid of noise.
Amanero board has much 'cleaner' power with reduced (non audible) noise level. I am now not using the NVE715 isolator and Amanero board subjectively still sounds 'cleaner'. Just perfekt !
The only issue I have is: When bitstreaming DSD I have a strong 'plop' noise in speakers when starting and stopping playback. Same when changing volume on my preamp (relais switched resistor volume control) during DSD playback. That happens only with DSD DoP bitstreaming, not with PCM I2S playback.
This indicates that Bufallo-III DAC generates a DC offset on DAC-output when being fed with DSD from J.River / Amanero board.
I wonder why, and if it is J.River, Amanero or Buffalo-III problem.
Did someone test DSD with Amanero & Buffalo DAC ? Interested to hear your experiences....
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what IV stage are you using? just using DSD instead of i2s isnt going to somehow circumvent analogue stages that dont have offset. its more likely to be a glitch/transient caused by the overlapping of different samplerates. particularly given the ESS isnt playing native DSD, its converted to 6 bit blocks internally in the dac, not acting as a 1bit analogue filter.
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I am using IVY-III output stage for Buffalo-III.
(Both IVY-III and my preamp are DC-coupled, balanced cabling, no capacitors in signal path)
Of course DC-offset is not generated initially by IVY-III, it must be generated by ESS9018 itselves. Assuming (theory) that ESS generates a constant current that is converted to voltage offset by I/V stage.
Maybe it is typical high-frequency DSD noise in 40khz to 100khz range that is transformed from current to Dc-offset in I/V stage ? Update: Don't think so, Burr Brown OPA1632 in IVY-III has very high bandwidth, and my preamp has -3dB point at 80khz. So it isn't high frequency that generates DC offset...must be real DC offset.
I will do some checks with a scope and report here.
For the other readers: I DON'T think it is any issue with Amanero board, looks more like an ESS DAC implementation issue - and it will occur only in the very rare case of having DC-coupled DAC and Preamp.
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you mentioned software player itself somehow causing it, I was simply stating that was unlikely, but needed to know whether you were using a stage that could pass a DC signal through. see unless its producing an asymmetrical DC error current from the dac, it wouldnt matter, DC coupled or not it would be cancelled in the IV stage. trust me, I use a balanced headphone amp using opa1632DGN for the input on an ackodac feeding the amp. it has a DC coupled input and output, with the ESS AVCC/2 DC offset fed directly to it and its completely cancelled in the headphone, its a common mode signal.
i'm sticking by my theory, have you measured it as DC or it just sounds like a transient? DC coupled or not, (more likely to come from a glitch than a signal), DC offset is near impossible to be caused with opa1632, though it will reproduce it. I believe its the transition from DSD to PCM.
I guess you are not using the DSD filter setting? are you switching from one to the other? ESS will not be switching automatically from PCM to DSD and back again, but your software will be and over this transition it could possibly have issues
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Have connected the OEM Combo384 Module to my MPD server
I am playing with outputs to the internal SPDIF (IRQ11), the WaveIO USB -> I2S (IRQ24) and the OEM Combo384 Module (IRQ25).
The general USB 2.0 Audio adapters / modules have generated so much interrupts that the CPU usage for USB IRQ have been in the area 2.7% to 8.3% depending on the USB port used (USB 2/3) and the USB adapter itself and the samplerate used on Intel i5 hardware platforms.
The WaveIO and the QNKTC 1.1 have comparable high interrupt levels and I have been able to reduce the CPU usage for USB IRQ to some extent, but the variation between the USB 2.0 Audio adapters when playing on USB 2.0 ports and with 44.1k/16bit have been within 5% deviation.
When I now connected the OEM Combo384 Module it generates less than 1/10 of the interrupts compared to all the other USB 2.0 Audio adapters / modules I have tested
But as you can see - the internal SPDIF (possibly also direct I2S output) generates less than 1/10 of the interrupts of the OEM Combo384 Module.
I'm actually surprised that USB is being used at all, Firewire is far superior and is IP based, and its widely available and if not immediatley available, easy to obtain, so why are we using USB again? which is a very unstable platform to begin with for audio...
The USB bus would be congested to hell if for example you were using external hard drives and USB flash drives, webcams, what have you, which most of us have plugged in constantly on our desktop PC's
Not only that but all of those wonderfully convenient usb devices you have on your desk and plugged into your pc will pickup all of the AC and RF hum and dump it all right onto the USB interface, which then produces ground loops and goes straight into your I2S bus.
And.. no ASIO, way to go in cutting out the entire Windows XP userbase.. lol though it does support Kernel Streaming for Foobar2000...
No thanks!, I'll skip this one and wait until a Thunderbolt based device brings an interface to I2S before I bite.
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