To me it seems there are different leagues of Dacs. Comming from Hifiberry, Audiophonics V3, Mamboberry, Mamboberry+Kali I finaly ended with Kali I2S feeding an AK4495 board, and indeed changed output stage opamp with Burson V5. OK, the setup can no longer by placed in an acceptable box, too many power supplies, separate boards... BUT what a sound man !
Therefore I would really be pleased to buy a well engineered AK44xx board (Kali/Boss quality) taking into account all the valuable design rules brought by the highly knowlegeable community here, and not playing arround with those aliexpress alternatives that needs a lot of reworks.
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The problem here is that the necessary patches - as prepared by Clive -
are not part of the standard PI kernel.
192kHz is where the story ends by default.
Either we maintain these patches ourselves and/or "we" - whoever that is - can make the RPI folks
accepting them.
The maintenance of Clives patches though, gets more difficult with every kernel release.
Without these samplerates you'll have problems
1. running DSD
2. bypassing certain on-dac filters like the one on the Boss, Piano, HifiBerry, IQaudio.......
3. ??
What would be the negative affects ?
You tell us...
Cheers
Are u sure u run the latest patch release? Checkout the readme
under /boot/overlays. Inside the readme the Boss config should list the slave
option. If not - you'd probably need a kernel update with the latest Boss patch.
There have been some updates over time!
On the other hand - since cdsgames is still around - he could confirm that Kali and Boss have been successfully tested
in slave mode on the 4.4.50 kernel with the latest Boss patch.
No. I havn't been using or testing the Soekris DAC. Several times I was close to pull the trigger.
But then all these rather negative aspects I picked up while reading about the DAC and its implementations prevented me to get this DAC.
And No. I don't think that "the prices are not that far apart". If you add up all
extra cost for a "quality" Soekris implementation, you'll look at quite an amount.
There was an announcement from Soekris at the beginning of the year about a DAM1231 HAT. There hasn't been much talk about it lately. I thought that to be a nice idea. However. If it's coming at all, it's gonna be a stripped down
version of the existing DACs as it seems. I couldn't say I'm overly enthusiastic.
Let see how things develop at that front.
I couldn't agree more. BUT.
E.g. my own DAC (formerly known as MamboBerry - nothing except the DAC chip and the board is left of it) - with several of the Subbu DAC tweaks and a single 3.6V tweaked Mravcla TPS7A4700 and synchronous clock from Kali made a substantial difference too.
IMO the Boss made quite a step into the right direction too.
However. There is still the output stage discussion. And this stage can make
quite a difference. But you also have to look at the connected amp.
It's not just the DAC. It's also about the interaction with the amp input stage which
can make a substantial difference.
As I said earlier. I see the HAT evolution well on its way.
PS: Let us know what DAC (reference) you're actually talking about.
We have to design different Oscillators circuit (since we have discreet design)..and also going higher in frequency means more EMI emissions.
Will check and see what is answered as well. In any event, works very well as is.
AK4495 chip on separate board Aliexpress or Audiophonics https://fr.aliexpress.com/store/pro...-your-player-Weiliang/327509_32479247139.html
I originally decided to test this board not because of AKM chip, but in order to test slave mode of DAC (there is no clock on board). Indeed, difficult for me to make the same mod you did with your Mamberry in order to desactivate onboard clock. Whith less efford here, the AK4495 profits from the very nice MCLK signal and clock comming form KALI.
But to tell the real truth, the system begin to shine only after remover the JRC5532 opamp whit discrete Burson V5. So you are right, output stage seems very critical and every hardware with opamp onboard is suspicious.
Connected to tube amp PSVANE 12AX7/EL84 for your information.
I am using Runeaudio 0.4 with the Boss dac.
When I ssh into the Raspberry and type lsmod a long list appears.
What is strange (in my non-technical mind) is that I see clk-allo-dac-45Mhz and that I do not see clk-allo-dac-49Mhz. There are two clocks on the Boss Dac but only one clock seems to be active. Is this correct?
I also listened to 24/96 music but there is no difference, only clk-allo-dac-45Mhz appears in the lsmod.
When I ssh into the Raspberry and type lsmod a long list appears.
What is strange (in my non-technical mind) is that I see clk-allo-dac-45Mhz and that I do not see clk-allo-dac-49Mhz. There are two clocks on the Boss Dac but only one clock seems to be active. Is this correct?
I also listened to 24/96 music but there is no difference, only clk-allo-dac-45Mhz appears in the lsmod.
Well i donno details of the drivers (modules); but try to do a command :
modinfo clk-allo-dac-45Mhz
modinfo clk-allo-dac-49Mhz
You can also try to load the "driver" by executing :
sudo modprobe clk-allo-dac-49Mhz... It's nothing special but drivers...
Let us know youre findings!
Jesper.
I did what you told me. Below are the results, I hope you can interpret them!
root@runeaudio(rw):~# modinfo clk-allo-dac-45Mhz
filename: /lib/modules/4.4.39-ARCH+/kernel/drivers/clk/clk-allo-dac-45Mhz.ko
alias: platform:clk-allo-dac
license: GPL v2
description: Allo DAC clock driver
srcversion: 32D91E591060EE6B16FF996
alias: of:N*T*Callo,dac-clk*
depends:
intree: Y
vermagic: 4.4.39-ARCH+ SMP mod_unload modversions ARMv7
root@runeaudio(rw):~# modinfo clk-allo-dac-49Mhz
modinfo: ERROR: Module clk-allo-dac-49Mhz not found.
root@runeaudio(rw):~# sudo modprobe clk-allo-dac-49Mhz
modprobe: FATAL: Module clk-allo-dac-49Mhz not found in directory /lib/modules/4.4.39-ARCH+
root@runeaudio(rw):~# modinfo clk-allo-dac-45Mhz
filename: /lib/modules/4.4.39-ARCH+/kernel/drivers/clk/clk-allo-dac-45Mhz.ko
alias: platform:clk-allo-dac
license: GPL v2
description: Allo DAC clock driver
srcversion: 32D91E591060EE6B16FF996
alias: of:N*T*Callo,dac-clk*
depends:
intree: Y
vermagic: 4.4.39-ARCH+ SMP mod_unload modversions ARMv7
root@runeaudio(rw):~# modinfo clk-allo-dac-49Mhz
modinfo: ERROR: Module clk-allo-dac-49Mhz not found.
root@runeaudio(rw):~# sudo modprobe clk-allo-dac-49Mhz
modprobe: FATAL: Module clk-allo-dac-49Mhz not found in directory /lib/modules/4.4.39-ARCH+
This means, no driver is named clk-allo-dac-49Mhz...
Try execute :
ls -all /lib/modules/4.4.39-ARCH+/kernel/drivers/clk/
Then you see all modules (drivers), which is dedicated the "clk" (clock) directory...
If you donno linux, i can tell you that ls -all is practially the same command as dir in msdos. It shows what's inside a directory... the parameter -a shows all information...
Jesper.
Thanks!
Here is the result:
root@runeaudio(rw):~# ls -all /lib/modules/4.4.39-ARCH+/kernel/drivers/clk/
total 24
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 16 18:00 .
drwxr-xr-x 41 root root 4096 Dec 25 16:13 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7030 Feb 15 22:40 clk-allo-dac-45Mhz.ko
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 7186 Feb 15 22:40 clk-hifiberry-dacpro.ko
Maybe 45Mhz is an abbreviation by which Allo means all the clocks that are present?
Here is the result:
root@runeaudio(rw):~# ls -all /lib/modules/4.4.39-ARCH+/kernel/drivers/clk/
total 24
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 16 18:00 .
drwxr-xr-x 41 root root 4096 Dec 25 16:13 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7030 Feb 15 22:40 clk-allo-dac-45Mhz.ko
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 7186 Feb 15 22:40 clk-hifiberry-dacpro.ko
Maybe 45Mhz is an abbreviation by which Allo means all the clocks that are present?
I think you are right... i would not worry... that module is what Allo has provided with theyre BOSS dac for now.
If some linux experts was here, including everything in kernel (if availible), is better than loading it with modules (or easier)... what i mean if one build a custom kernel, where ONLY needed hardware is added, then hole system is more "quick" or light! ... Distros tends to include all stuff as modules, and only loading them when needed!; well that good enough, but having a system, only running what is needed is perfect... but one has to be an expert to do this through ... Well this is offtopic i know, but i think it's overlooked everywhere i look.
Jesper.
I was thinking of a dedicated Dac for my Pi 3 but in the end opted for a stand-alone Cambridge DacMagic 100. I connected it to the Pi through the USB connection but that wasn't satisfactory for me. I then added a PiFi Digi+ to my Pi and that made all the difference to my ears. Very open sound and no more clicks for the shared network/usb interface of the Pi. Costs? €150 for the Cambridge and €23 for the PiFi Digi+
Hi.
Just checked the latest Boss driver on a freshly compiled 4.4.50 kernel.
It works.
It also seems to work in "slave" mode. "Seems" because I don't know
a quick way to verify it.
However. The clock driver still gets loaded in slave mode.
There's just one driver for both frequencies btw.
That "..45Mhz" is misleading.
Allo please change this to avoid confusion!
If in slave mode I hope the clock driver turns off
both onboard clocks!! (EMI avoidance) -- Allo - please verify!
I havn't put in the Kali yet.
############
BUT!!!!!!!!!!
With the Boss (or any other DAC of this 51xx DAC family) in place -
you always have to check your alsamixer settings - usually with ssh !!!
You can't trust your distro to have the default settings right!
This might end up into "No Sound" or poor sound!!!
I also ran into the "No sound" trap with Moode!
Just checked the latest Boss driver on a freshly compiled 4.4.50 kernel.
It works.
It also seems to work in "slave" mode. "Seems" because I don't know
a quick way to verify it.
However. The clock driver still gets loaded in slave mode.
There's just one driver for both frequencies btw.
That "..45Mhz" is misleading.
Allo please change this to avoid confusion!
If in slave mode I hope the clock driver turns off
both onboard clocks!! (EMI avoidance) -- Allo - please verify!
I havn't put in the Kali yet.
############
BUT!!!!!!!!!!
With the Boss (or any other DAC of this 51xx DAC family) in place -
you always have to check your alsamixer settings - usually with ssh !!!
You can't trust your distro to have the default settings right!
This might end up into "No Sound" or poor sound!!!
I also ran into the "No sound" trap with Moode!
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