xonar deluxe pin outs

[kevino]

Hi,

I'm messing about with a Asus Xonar (hdmi) deluxe - contemplating
connecting to external dacs or improving the components/circuitry
on the daughter board. I've just tried to figure out the pin-out
configuration and thought that others might be interested or
care to validate my findings (Please don't use with checking them
yourself!).

I'm looking directly at the pins on the daughter board like this:


01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

This is what I've found just using a multi-meter to find the various
connections between the pins and the Dacs/op amps. I haven't
identified all of the mappings but I think I've got the important ones


01) op amp -ve
02)
03) op amp +ve
04) analog/digital ground
05) digital power supply (Vdd)
06)
07)
08) MC (pcm1976)
09) MDO (pcm1976)
10)
11)
12)
13) RST (pcm1976)
14)
15)
16) SCK (pcm1976)
17) BCK (pcm1976)
18) LRCK (pcm1976)
19)
20) DATA (pcm1976 right dac)
21) DATA (pcm1976 left dac)
22) DATA (pcm1976 middle dac)
23)
24)
25)

can't wait to build something to connect to the Xonar. Please let me know if you
find any errors or extra connections
and also if you are thinking about following similar 'experiments'.
(I'm currently using this as a crossover with the foobar2000 crossover plugin.)

Regards

[soundcheck]

Great job. I was asking myself if I2S can be tapped off the connector
to the daughter-board.

Now I'd need to find out if 64FS is supplied on the I2S to be able to feed e.g.
a Buffalo DAC.

Cheers

[kevino]

Hi soundcheck,

I knew this would be of limited interest in general although I'd seen that
you are interested in similar goals - unfortunately, I can't yet PM anyone yet:-)
Will let you know how I get on.

Having read through a lot of posts, I think my direction is going to be different
to many others; seems like there's a huge effort to get low-jitter signals to external
dac boxes and in some cases it seems like the implementers end up building
mini computers at the other end;-) Think I'm going to aim to keep dacs as
close to the source as possible and try to minimise noise with shielding/decoupling.
I'm already starting off with a Zalmann TNN 300 'quiet' computer case that has no
fans and quite a lot of shielding.

Initially, I'm going build linear power supplies for the xonar & daughter board.
Ultimately, I'm not sure that 'this' xonar is the way to goes as the audio side of
things might be compromised by the video circuitry but it's great as a starting
point.

[soundcheck]

A good friend of mine supplies his Juli or D2X ( don't nail me on that)
with an external battery supply.

His finding: Building a separate clean supply is a big step forward and well worth the effort.

However I could imagine that the externally powered daughterboard and a tweaked output stage could lift up the card in audiophile areas. BTW: What do you think of its off-the-shelve sound quality?

I do agree all these micro PCs are nice little toys when it comes to DSPless Stereo
playback. And that's about it.


Good luck.

[kevino]

The Xonar sounds good (off the shelf) although I haven't really
got anything to compare it with at the moment. I think the biggest
benefit with it is enabling me to do using digital cross-overs that
drive a rotel RMB-1077 (7 channel) amp. I only use digital volume
control to keep a clean signal path and I soldered in attenuators
in front of the power amp so that I don't lose too much precision.

[dwk123]

This is interesting. I was originally intrigued by the ESI Juli@ when it became clear that there were I2S headers available, but that cooled when I realized it was 2-channel only.

The HDAV looks quite interesting. 4 I2S data lines on the headers would have been even better, but 3 isn't too bad - using the analog outs on the card for subs would be Ok in a pinch if necessary.

I am curious as to why they used a 20 pin cable to carry only a few signals, though - any idea how many of the other pins are actually in use? (lots of grounds, I would guess for a start)

So, my first two questions are probably similar to soundcheck's
- how good is the linux support
- what is the master clock multiple? (probably 256fs at base rate, but how about at 176/192?)


I think your idea of trying to go with an optimized internal approach may be interesting. With a mAtx board you should have a lot of space 'below' the slots to implement a protected/shielded area only a few inches from the headers. Feed in a good separate set of power supply lines from outside, and this may work very well.

I'll need to decide whether it's worth getting a new cpu/MB to try this - my current audio PC's are PCI-only

[soundcheck]

Latest ALSA should support the HDAV1.3 basic functions. You can try my upgrade script (see link in signature)

[dwk123]

Originally posted by kevino
Hi soundcheck,

Think I'm going to aim to keep dacs as
close to the source as possible and try to minimise noise with shielding/decoupling.
I'm already starting off with a Zalmann TNN 300 'quiet' computer case that has no
fans and quite a lot of shielding.

The Zalman looks like a nice case, but for this application the Antec nsk2480/fusion look ideal *IF* you can get away with a picopsu. Looking at the images from here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129034 using a pico would give you the entire PSU area to house the DAC board and any upgraded output boards etc. It's nicely shielded via a full partition from the main PC area, which should reduce emi/rfi about as much as can be expected, but is still close enough to the slots to run the ribbon cable. You'd probably still need to have the analog supplies for the card external, but you'd have the full back panel area reserved for the psu for connector mounting. This could could be a very nice setup, and the 2480 is only $80 through newegg at the moment.

I have a Delta 1010 which has 4 pairs of I2S lines that I'm focused on working with rather than getting the Xonar, but I'm very tempted to consider something like the above. You could even build your DAC stuff into the gutted case of an old psu, and just bolt it in. Pretty slick if well done.

[fzman]

i'm using the xonar essence stx, which is a pci-e card (w/bridge to pci chipset). it has a molex connector to supply 12v and 5v to the analog and digital stuff, for which i have built a choke regulated linear supply - actually two supplies which only share the iec connector.

i've been opamp rolling as all 3 are socketed -- current favorite is the national lme49720, in the to-99-8 metal can format. so far, it is sonding very good -- rich, coherent, full-bodied, dynamic, palpable and detailed.....

this card may be better for a two channel project that the hdmi card, and is easier to supply great power for.

it also has a combi-ouotput which does coax and toslink spdif.

hope that helps.

soundchek-- i think i know of your firend, who posts on the computer audio section of audioasylum...

best regards,

Mark

[Telstar]

Originally posted by soundcheck
Great job. I was asking myself if I2S can be tapped off the connector
to the daughter-board.

I'm asking the same thing. Xonar cards, unlike the ESI are shielded and I believe that the EMI shield helps when getting i2s.

Originally posted by dwk123
This is interesting. I was originally intrigued by the ESI Juli@ when it became clear that there were I2S headers available, but that cooled when I realized it was 2-channel only.

Theoretically, it should be possible from all Xonar cards.

Originally posted by fzman
i'm using the xonar essence stx, which is a pci-e card (w/bridge to pci chipset).

This is the best of the bunch of asus cards (and I'm planning to get it for my office computer where i sit only with headphones).
I wonder if there are any differences in the digital section, though.

Originally posted by fzman
this card may be better for a two channel project that the hdmi card, and is easier to supply great power for.

Good, thanks