exaU2I - Multi-Channel Asynchronous USB to I2S Interface

[NicMac]

I saw that the "High Bandwidth" firmware chip is up on the Buffalo page here.
Will not brake anybody's budget ;-)

[qusp]

@ AR2:, no problems mate, yes you can use both at the same time; because exa appears as a soundcard. in audiomidi control panel, you create what is called and aggregate device. all outputs and inputs will be available, you wont be able to bounce from the rme to exa, or vice versa using the totalmix channel strip method, for that you would need jack. but with all outputs available in logic, you should be able to bounce from one to the other in there also (this would be my choice) the output will be limited in bandwidth/resolution to the max that the rme can do, which is 192 i guess.

[Bunpei]

How do you obtain high resolution music sources originally recorded or released upper than 352.8 kHz/24 bit?
(I mean any up-sampled files from 192 kHz does not fall into this category.)

Just for a test purpose, MSB is releasing short sample files which contain simple announces by human voices on this page.
MSB Support

I have known no other sources available on the Internet.

[UKPD]

Hi Bunpei,

You can look up 2L Nordic Sound, they have quite a collection there, there are some free samples also.

Cheers

Peter

[NicMac]

Originally Posted by UKPD

You can look up 2L Nordic Sound, they have quite a collection there, there are some free samples also.

I cannot find anything with resolution above 352.8 kHz/24 bit at 2L.
Am I missing something?
Nic

[UKPD]

Oops, missed the -above- sorry.

[flemming3520]

About 2 weeks ago when I again was looking for dsd support for the exaU2I, I started thinking about the similarities between I2S with 32 bit data length and raw DSD.

I2S has a bit clock of 64*Fs, a Fs word clock and two 32 bit data words for a stereo channel
Raw DSD has a bit clock of 64*Fs, a Fs word clock (not allways used) and a data rate of 64*Fs for each channel

So an quad 44.1kHz I2S connection will have the data rates needed for a raw dsd connection to a if we connect like shown below.

I2S dataclock -> DSD data clock (Data clock)
I2S data channel 1/2 -> DSD data 1 (D1)
I2S data channel 3/4 -> DSD data 2 (D2)
I2S wordclock -> not connected

Note it will only work because exaU2I support 32bit data, two+ I2S data channels , and the ESS9018 dac do not use the wordclock for DSD data.

So I ordered an exaU2I
I got the exaU2I unit this Friday and started playing with the software using the C# Asio wrapper from here Low Latency Audio using ASIO Drivers in .NET - CodeProject as a starting point.

I am now listening to Alison Krauss's Live album in DSD playing back from my WinXP PC

If anybody will like to try, I will be happy to supply the software, but "as is".
It is only a proof of concept and have to be used with extreme care.

I also tested that the ES9018 have support for both DSD64 and DSD128

Flemming

[flemming3520]

I will like to see Asio Support for DSD playback, both DSD64 and DSD128.
The easist way to interface to dff files will be using the ASIOSTDSDInt8MSB1 format.

Flemming

[exa065]

Originally Posted by flemming3520

I will like to see Asio Support for DSD playback, both DSD64 and DSD128.
The easist way to interface to dff files will be using the ASIOSTDSDInt8MSB1 format.

Flemming

Very exciting! We will make the necessary changes to the device / driver. Could you help me to recreate your configuration?

exa065

[exa065]

I wander how many people are interested to play with exaU2I and DSD? I haven't heard back form Flemming and I have no further details on the player ->ASIO wrapper setup that was used for his experiment. There are two options to enable DSD with exaU2I:

• Short term - develop alternative ASIO driver or enable alternative mode for the current driver. This solution will benefit current exaU2I users
• Develop alternative FPGA implementation / diver - this option is justified if there is enough interest in the DSD playback capability

Additionally, there must be an ASIO player capable of DSD playback. The first thing that comes to mind is a Foobar plug-in. There is a plug-in out there capable of near-real-time DSD->PCM conversion. I will contact the developer to see if he is interested to alter the existing plug-in for native DSD output.