exaU2I - Multi-Channel Asynchronous USB to I2S Interface

[Blitz]

Originally Posted by RayCtech

So I am waiting for ALSA drivers to use the exaU2I with MPD

Same for me...would be great to have puppy and mpd with you card and not the nasty sounding w7...this product is for the hardcore guys...any chance ?

[audiolic]

and 40% of a core i5 load is enormus.. you need to add DSP and better drivers in that thing ... this is crazy stuff.. Your like 20 years late on pro audio soundcards... you gonna close the doors to only audiophile that use their computer for nothing else than audio... kinda crazy..

[zibra]

Originally Posted by analog_sa

Forgot to mention the test was definitely not biased in Exa's favour: the WaveIO had a separate transformer and a Jung-type regulator and also used my favourite USB cable, whereas the Exa had to do with USB power. As for the cable, the silly mini-usb socket forced the use of a cellphone data cable

Could you please elaborate what are main differences between waveIO (by Lorien?) and EXA converters? Words like great, huge step up etc don mean that much

[analog_sa]

Originally Posted by zibra

Words like great, huge step up etc don mean that much

Please let me have a list of approved words and i'll see what i can do.

Still haven't done an exhaustive subjective comparison between the two. Not sure if it's worth my time and effort. Once i get the FIFO board from Iancanada i'll see if the output of WaveIO can be improved sufficiently to be usable. Reverting back to it in it's current form is just too painful.

[zibra]

Sorry I didnt mean to offend you but nowadays all stuff is marked as great, fantastic without any details what makes it so special. If you mentioned WaveIO and found EXA much better i would be thankful for more details where is so big improvement. If you arent in mood to share with it thats fine.
Do you have XMOS based converter from Lucien?

[kschiu]

Originally Posted by audiolic

and 40% of a core i5 load is enormus.. you need to add DSP and better drivers in that thing ... this is crazy stuff.. Your like 20 years late on pro audio soundcards... you gonna close the doors to only audiophile that use their computer for nothing else than audio... kinda crazy..

I think exa was talking about 384kHz / 4 channels at about 40% running on an Atom.

[analog_sa]

Yes, that's what i have. Absolutely no offence taken. Will post further impressions in time.

[exa065]

Originally Posted by kschiu

I think exa was talking about 384kHz / 4 channels at about 40% running on an Atom.

Yes, I was referring to CPU usage on $350 ATOM netbook. I don't have access to an ATOM computer, and I don't remember the exact setup - player, memory etc. Foobar has by default a hystogram visualization on the toolbar. It becomes a CPU killer at high sampling rates. It should be removed for the test.

[exa065]

Originally Posted by Blitz

Same for me...would be great to have puppy and mpd with you card and not the nasty sounding w7...this product is for the hardcore guys...any chance ?

I am also inpatient to play with Linux driver development. There are just so many hours in a day...

[exa065]

Originally Posted by zibra

Could you please elaborate what are main differences between waveIO (by Lorien?) and EXA converters? Words like great, huge step up etc don mean that much[/IMG]

Wave IO is 24bit, exaU2I is 32 bit. The matters when DSP processing (including software volume control or oversampling) is applied by the player. It is also a major advantage on Mac, where Integer mode is a problem.

exaU2I can go twice as high when it comes to sampling rate (384kHz), and this creates opportunities for oversampling. It also makes it possible to play DXD studio masters files.

We have control over the drivers, and this gives exaU2I an unfair advantage.

In my opinion jitter is a major issue with XMOS. Here is a post by JarekC -TAS1020B-based Asynchronous USB to I2S/SPDIF converter 24bit/96kHz. According to Larry, an XMOS employee:

" any external clock is resampled to 400MHz If you tie I2S signals BCLK LRCLK and DATA to a low-jitter external clock on the XMOS device, this will introduce a jitter in the order of one to two 2.5ns (400MHz) cycles"

exaU2I is 50 times better when it comes to jitter. In general FPGA cores provide much more accurate timing than CPUs.

Regards,
exa065