USB5102
Hi,
I have ordered a small quantity of boards for the USB5102 design. Once I have verified the design works I will offer the remainder as kits.
The TI PCM5102 has the potential of pushing the open-source software and hardware into the 32bit arena. It will be interesting to see if this is possible.
Download the document archive from a link on this page.
George
Hi,
I have ordered a small quantity of boards for the USB5102 design. Once I have verified the design works I will offer the remainder as kits.
The TI PCM5102 has the potential of pushing the open-source software and hardware into the 32bit arena. It will be interesting to see if this is possible.
Download the document archive from a link on this page.
George
Borge has asked me to post my experiences with the AB1.1 which I do with great pleasure.
I have had an AB1.1 for some two weeks now. I have been listening to it through an AMB Mini3 and Alpha20 headphone amplifiers and Sennheiser HD600 headphones (my speakers are mothballed at the moment). My benchmark is an EMU 0404 USB soundcard battery fed and with passive, transformer coupled, output (transformers are S&B Tx102 TVC). Source is a laptop running the latest Ubuntu. Software is Squeezeplay for material up to 96k and mpd for 192k stuff.
I have set the AB1.1 to UAC2 when I first received it and forgot about it. Unlike the EMU, the AB1.1 even switches sampling rate automatically on the fly. With the EMU, the sampling rate has to be switched manually. I tried to see whether UAC2 worked in Windows 7 64 and downloaded the suggested drivers. They do not seem to install properly. Since I mostly use linux, I did not bother to persevere. They only issue in linux is when switching to material with a higher sample rate. The music plays at the wrong sample rate with periodic clicks for some 10-15 seconds. After that everything's fine.
I did the following mods.
1) Replaced USB supply with SLA battery regulated down to 5V.
and, as suggested by 1audio,
2) 470 uF 25V caps in C21 and C31 (Rubycon ZL)
3) 6.8 nF polystyrene caps at C251 and C253
1) makes a dramatic difference. The mid-highs are somewhat fatiguing with the USB supply, but very sweet with the battery.
3) is a first order low pass at the output. The original AB1.1 comes with no filter on the output. I felt that the adding the filter makes the sound a bit fuller. I guess it has mostly to do with my amplifiers not being happy with the HF noise. This despite that the TVC between the dac and the amp already acts a second-order low pass.
Compared to the EMU (main mod, beyond battery supply, is power supply decoupling for the dac) the AB1.1 sounds a tad leaner, though less after mod 3). I feel this makes the EMU a bit more natural e.g. on cymbals. Where the ESS9023 dac in the AB1.1 wins hands down is the ability to reveal details and resolve complex passages. You can hear much more and make significantly more sense of the music with the AB1.1 than the EMU.
At the moment I am waiting for some a123 lifepo4 batteries to feed the clocks and dac digital section as per jkeny Hiface mods.
Overall, for the price it is a steal. I am seriously temped to buy a second one for the office. Hopefully a CLC fiter on the USB supply would get me close enough to the performance with an external supply.
I also hope at some point to be able to use the digital board to add USB/I2s conversion to my DCX2496 digital crossover when I will reinstate my 3 way open baffle speakers.
I have had an AB1.1 for some two weeks now. I have been listening to it through an AMB Mini3 and Alpha20 headphone amplifiers and Sennheiser HD600 headphones (my speakers are mothballed at the moment). My benchmark is an EMU 0404 USB soundcard battery fed and with passive, transformer coupled, output (transformers are S&B Tx102 TVC). Source is a laptop running the latest Ubuntu. Software is Squeezeplay for material up to 96k and mpd for 192k stuff.
I have set the AB1.1 to UAC2 when I first received it and forgot about it. Unlike the EMU, the AB1.1 even switches sampling rate automatically on the fly. With the EMU, the sampling rate has to be switched manually. I tried to see whether UAC2 worked in Windows 7 64 and downloaded the suggested drivers. They do not seem to install properly. Since I mostly use linux, I did not bother to persevere. They only issue in linux is when switching to material with a higher sample rate. The music plays at the wrong sample rate with periodic clicks for some 10-15 seconds. After that everything's fine.
I did the following mods.
1) Replaced USB supply with SLA battery regulated down to 5V.
and, as suggested by 1audio,
2) 470 uF 25V caps in C21 and C31 (Rubycon ZL)
3) 6.8 nF polystyrene caps at C251 and C253
1) makes a dramatic difference. The mid-highs are somewhat fatiguing with the USB supply, but very sweet with the battery.
3) is a first order low pass at the output. The original AB1.1 comes with no filter on the output. I felt that the adding the filter makes the sound a bit fuller. I guess it has mostly to do with my amplifiers not being happy with the HF noise. This despite that the TVC between the dac and the amp already acts a second-order low pass.
Compared to the EMU (main mod, beyond battery supply, is power supply decoupling for the dac) the AB1.1 sounds a tad leaner, though less after mod 3). I feel this makes the EMU a bit more natural e.g. on cymbals. Where the ESS9023 dac in the AB1.1 wins hands down is the ability to reveal details and resolve complex passages. You can hear much more and make significantly more sense of the music with the AB1.1 than the EMU.
At the moment I am waiting for some a123 lifepo4 batteries to feed the clocks and dac digital section as per jkeny Hiface mods.
Overall, for the price it is a steal. I am seriously temped to buy a second one for the office. Hopefully a CLC fiter on the USB supply would get me close enough to the performance with an external supply.
I also hope at some point to be able to use the digital board to add USB/I2s conversion to my DCX2496 digital crossover when I will reinstate my 3 way open baffle speakers.
Do you mean the SLA or the Lifepo4?
SLA are standard YUASA. Two-step regulation by means of two LM317 to avoid tool large heatsink.
Lifepo4: A123 Systems size 26650. 1 for clock and 1 for dac digital supply. Charged in parallel by means of this
eBay - The UK's Online Marketplace
when it arrives...
g
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could this board:
S/PDIF interface board for I2S FIFO project
also be used to add s/pdif I/O capability to the AW?
(yes, I know s/pdif is bad and I wouldn't use it for "serious" listening. But sometimes having it available does still come handy...).
S/PDIF interface board for I2S FIFO project
also be used to add s/pdif I/O capability to the AW?
(yes, I know s/pdif is bad and I wouldn't use it for "serious" listening. But sometimes having it available does still come handy...).
That's a nice looking setup!
I think SPDIF out is easy. To the MCU an SPDIF transmitter would just look like a DAC, and it would be an MCLK slave.
But SPDIF in is different, in that it would take over as MCLK master. Alternatively, one can use the SRC4392 as a sample rate converter and keep the XOs on the AB-1.1. I've used that part before but I'm not familiar with the chip used in that project.
Børge
I think SPDIF out is easy. To the MCU an SPDIF transmitter would just look like a DAC, and it would be an MCLK slave.
But SPDIF in is different, in that it would take over as MCLK master. Alternatively, one can use the SRC4392 as a sample rate converter and keep the XOs on the AB-1.1. I've used that part before but I'm not familiar with the chip used in that project.
Børge
Gianluca,
nicholas.pate@gmail.com may be able to help you with your setup on Mac OSX. He recently tested the audio-widget-nik firmware on his sdr-widget and had no problem with playback with uac2.
Alex
nicholas.pate@gmail.com may be able to help you with your setup on Mac OSX. He recently tested the audio-widget-nik firmware on his sdr-widget and had no problem with playback with uac2.
Alex
I'll have one of these when you are ready George. My ESS 9023 looks like Pearl Habour - 41 but it works so far. I have already downloaded the doc pack ;-)
Brgds
You wish Borges
Another anomaly is this:
C:\Program Files\Atmel\Flip 3.4.3\bin>batchisp -device at32uc3a3256 -hardware usb -operation erase f memory flash blankcheck loadbuffer D:\projects\audio*\releas*\demo* program verify start reset 0
Running batchisp 1.2.5 on Fri Nov 11 10:41:29 2011
AT32UC3A3256 - USB - USB/DFU
Device selection....................... PASS
Hardware selection..................... PASS
Opening port........................... PASS
Reading Bootloader version............. PASS 1.0.3
Erasing................................ FAIL Could not read from USB device.
(A)bort, (R)etry, (I)gnore ? i
Selecting FLASH........................ PASS
Blank checking......................... FAIL Could not read from USB device.
(A)bort, (R)etry, (I)gnore ? i
FAIL Invalid or missing argument.
ISP done.
C:\Program Files\Atmel\Flip 3.4.3\bin>
The flashled stuff worked great.
Brgds
BTW: The loading of flashblink did warn about overlapping code between bootloader and code... But it still worked.
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Thanks Borge - I'll look into it but here comes additional stuff:
Confession - pin 1 lead seems to be screwed - there is contact but it's the only problem i can see with 10x mag.
What about the jungo driver part - it asked me of what device i have... But if it worked for the blinkyflash - I can't see that there is a problem. Suppose it's allright - how do I choose to get the stream out of this device? Oh yes - I haven't figured out about the widget control part yet... It might be important but now I need some sleep.
Brgds and good night
Yes, it is perhaps a bit fragmented... The download section is here:
Downloads - sdr-widget - Audio and Control Interface for Amateur Radio SDR and Audiophile USB-DAC - Google Project Hosting
The SDR Widget homepage has a link to github, but it doesn't come up as a link. Could someone with write permission change that, and perhaps add a link from github to the homepage as well?
Thanks,
Børge
Downloads - sdr-widget - Audio and Control Interface for Amateur Radio SDR and Audiophile USB-DAC - Google Project Hosting
The SDR Widget homepage has a link to github, but it doesn't come up as a link. Could someone with write permission change that, and perhaps add a link from github to the homepage as well?
Thanks,
Børge