Asynchronous I2S FIFO project, an ultimate weapon to fight the jitter

[hochopeper]

Thank you so much Chris. I appreciate your efforts to the community!

Now I'm focusing on the Si570 project, I know a lot of friends are waiting for this small board (just got V2.0 PCB ). I'll go through the wiki and add more things.

Any help to the wiki is more than welcome .

Ian

If you want to give it a day or so Ian I'll add a bunch of info to each heading and at least that may give a starting point/framework for you and anyone else wanting to contribute.

I think the big advantage of the wiki is that it can be managed by the community and be one less thing that you need to worry about. We'll manage wiki/index document and the intelligent work is still all done by you


Cheers,
Chris

 

[Adrculda]

Thank you so much Chris. I appreciate your efforts to the community!

Now I'm focusing on the Si570 project, I know a lot of friends are waiting for this small board (just got V2.0 PCB ). I'll go through the wiki and add more things.

Any help to the wiki is more than welcome .

Ian

Good...
You do that

 

[iancanada]

I did jitter measurement on MCLK of both WM8805 output and FIFO output yesterday. I'll public those screen shots. I agree testing report is more important than telling a story. But I'm afraid I don't have time posting the result today. Will do it as soon as possible.

Another thing I have to mention is, this project is not an open source project, though I have been sharing information with community as much as I can. If there are something I didn't public, that means I reserved them for myself, at least for now. I thank you for your kind understanding.

Ian

 

[iancanada]

Good...
You do that

Thanks Adrculda for your great suggestion.

Ian

 

[iancanada]

If you want to give it a day or so Ian I'll add a bunch of info to each heading and at least that may give a starting point/framework for you and anyone else wanting to contribute.

I think the big advantage of the wiki is that it can be managed by the community and be one less thing that you need to worry about. We'll manage wiki/index document and the intelligent work is still all done by you


Cheers,
Chris

Thanks hochopeper, I will.

But I have to say the new V2.0 Si570 board sounds really great, even better than V1.0 for sure. I'm afraid I have to spend a little bit time on...enjoy my music.

Ian

 

[qusp]

I wil be more interested in the test setup than the actual jitter measurement, you can confirm its as expected? a simple yes/no will suffice

 

[TNT]

Thanks hochopeper, I will.

But I have to say the new V2.0 Si570 board sounds really great, even better than V1.0 for sure. I'm afraid I have to spend a little bit time on...enjoy my music.

Ian

Like!

 

[regal]

Update: just checked, if I plug my source thru my HDMI switch I'm limited to 44.1khz and 48Khz... If a plug my received with no switch my NVIDIA High definition audio card detect 96khz availability

An even if you send Dolby True HD on the HDMI channel the SPDIF out will probably only send 2 channel 48khz...

One great HDMI compagnon for the FIFO would be the HDfury HDMI to component adapter.

whats the deal with that? I have an old receiver that doesn't decode Dolby True HD or DTS HD, but my computer decodes it fine to LCPM hirez 24/192 using the LAV decoder, we can use our computers to send hirez thru HDMI since the proprietary acttion (decoding) is done prior to the output of the computer in HTPC geek terms not bit streaming.

I can also send 24/96 flac files thru HDMI with most software music players. It is so convenient but has terrible jitter, the fifo would be a nice cure. Really would be awesome to see a multi-channel fifo but can't see it being much use without an HDMI input of some-sort, its just what the industry has gone to.

USB 2.0 Hi-speed audio spec is dead, Intel and M$ are dropping it completely since the USB 3.0 spec includes asynchronous making UAC2 obsolete(mac will have too also with Broadwell). It will die faster than fire-wire driver support will be nill in a few years, but hdmi is here to stay.

 

[qusp]

sorry I think thats pretty funny, whether or not other interfaces start to be used, USB2 support will continue for many years to come, there is simply far too much hobbiest and professional audio gear that uses it and USB3 connectors can host it afaik (if anything its usb3 that will dodo, as it doesnt compete with truly high speed devices)

vinyl was supposed to be vanquished decades ago too

HDMI is not a replacement due to license and buy in cash and restricted environment and thunderbolt will support all of them at native speeds and protocols via adapters.

enough of the scare-mongering hey? just because windows still hasnt managed to support it with a proper driver after years of other companies/platforms doing so. hell even android supports it better than windows

 

[hochopeper]

I know very little about USB3 but when it comes to UAC2 over USB3 .... XMOS don't support it.

https://www.xmos.com/download/public/XMOS-USB-and-USB-Audio-System-Requirements-Guide(1.0).pdf

3.5 USB 3.0
Use of the UAC2 Reference Designs with USB 3.0 ports is not supported.
When a high-speed USB 2.0 device is plugged into a USB 3.0 port (blue socket) it is
connected to a USB 3.0 xHCI controller. At this time Microsoft has not yet released
an xHCI driver stack and insteadaA third party bus driver such as the NEC/Renesas
driver will be installed on the host PC. However, there are quite a number of third
party bus drivers and at this time XMOS does not test against any of them.

If future motherboards don't actually have USB2 controllers then ...... who knows what the future may bring. I agree that HDMI is shifting far higher volumes of gear that the rest of us may eventually end up on it or something similar, not tomorrow though and surely not willingly!!

Maybe that is just related to xmos windows driver?? I think more reading is needed.

 

[qusp]

nah, I think wireless protocols will be a more likely replacement for hi end audio than HDMI. I dont see HDMI or USB3 being adopted as a new standard for our application before wifi sweeps them all away

 

[Fridrik]

To replace things into context my vision with HDMI is simply to have a integrated HIFI audio-visual system. The FIFO would be included in this chain and even for video I dont require 7.1 channels. A good 2 channels HIFI setup is ok for me.
If cash wasn't a issue I would buy a HDfury HDMI to SPDIF adapter that support Hires audio

• Industry-standard S/PDIF output
• Supports 2-channel 32-192kHz stereo audio
• Supports IEC60958 2-channel PCM

For the moment I commute my sources with the internal selector on my DAC because my HDMI switch SPDIF Out don't send anything higher than 48khz. Not the end of the world by any means ;-)

 

[hochopeper]

Just a clarification - the term 'wifi' is generally used to refer to IEEE802.11abgn etc

This is different to bluetooth, zigbee and other low power protocols in the family IEEE802.15.x

The next standards to look to I think are IEEE1609 and IEEE802.11P which will provide a faster interface again.

I just don't think any new 'wireless usb' standard will be approved that doesn't provide content encryption/protection for the media protocol, especially not with multichannel.

 

[qusp]

you know what I mean, of course the protocol will continue to change, ethernet or similar would be another possibility. I do not mean wireless USB. our devices will continue to evolve towards being network nodes with embedded processors

so what will they insist people start calling the new wifi when it changes its protocol number? its part of the vernacular, its not going to be called something else.

also, I said wireless, not wifi, or are you clarifying a point you yourself made, or is it a pre-emptive clarification? lol

 

[andrea_mori]

wifi, multi-channel... I'm a bit confused.. I begin to think I'm not on the right forum
I don't understand if your goal is listening to music or watching 3D movies
There are still too many hardware issues in audio system, before moving on to software issues

So, Ian
since you are an expert in FPGA developing
since I2S is the right way, or at least the less worst
maybe, start thinking to a good SD player or a good USB-I2S interface for those who cannot live without the PC
and for the umpteenth time to a system sinchronized from the DAC

uhh.. wifi, wireless... does not change my mind

 

[qusp]

umm, yeah your a little confused or perhaps just a little dated if you dont understand what wireless and multichannel might have to do with music, even stereo music, primarily 2 channel music for me. not that many people here on the forums are using multichannel audio links to their dacs to play movies or multichannel audio

hint, digital crossover

wireless, wifi, ethernet whatever, wireless is more convenient and it really shouldnt make any difference

fifo is transport agnostic, why do you even care what sort of data link it comes in on? still stuck in old thinking?

if Ian would design a USB interface, (god knows why we need another one) if done properly wouldnt it just remove the need for fifo? seems a waste of resources when there are actually a few decent ones already

 

[regal]

I can't afford a high end multichannel home thater setup, but there is something special to multi-channel audio (esxpecially Blu-Ray Concert's.)

Multi channel has been around since the 70's (QUAD) its has never gone away and always been a medium for audio-fanatics, the first stereos had three channels. So unless a guy only likes mono he shouldn't dismiss multi-channel for audio.

 

[andrea_mori]

umm, yeah your a little confused or perhaps just a little dated if you dont understand what wireless and multichannel might have to do with music, even stereo music, primarily 2 channel music for me. not that many people here on the forums are using multichannel audio links to their dacs to play movies or multichannel audio

you are right, I'm a little dated, wireless is not useful in my music world, just a cable do easily the job

hint, digital crossover

oh my God...

fifo is transport agnostic, why do you even care what sort of data link it comes in on? still stuck in old thinking?

Seems you don't understand, synchronizing the source from the DAC, FIFO is no longer useful
Linn docet

But I'm dated, since I still prefer to listen to a live Staynway performance

 

[andrea_mori]

I can't afford a high end multichannel home thater setup, but there is something special to multi-channel audio (esxpecially Blu-Ray Concert's.)

Multi channel has been around since the 70's (QUAD) its has never gone away and always been a medium for audio-fanatics, the first stereos had three channels. So unless a guy only likes mono he shouldn't dismiss multi-channel for audio.

no hope of superior quality in multi-channel, IMHO
in case, I'm looking for good news from ARDA Technologies

 

[regal]

Seems you don't understand, synchronizing the source from the DAC, FIFO is no longer useful
Linn docet

Do you like long antennaes (cables running at MCK) running back to the source from the DAC (I don't), the whole point of the fifo is to put the master clock in the DAC.

So it looks like this: [Transport]-spdif-[fifo-dac]. Its nothing to fear works great.