ES9018K2M, ES9028Q2M, 9038Q2M DSD/I2S DAC HATs for Raspberry Pi

Hi Ian,

anything new on this topic or did you discard your plans building this HAT DAC?
It exists!

34703972731_7e2ae4061d_o.jpg
 
Hopefully it is not to late to replace it with es9028q2m.

@TioFrancotirador

ES9028Q2M is possible. The only thing is that ESS is not interested in our DIYer. They are only interested in cell phone manufacturers now. So, it had to get technical support.

Please let me know if you have more information about ES9028Q2M

Thanks for your suggestion.

Regards,
Ian
 
@TioFrancotirador

ES9028Q2M is possible. The only thing is that ESS is not interested in our DIYer. They are only interested in cell phone manufacturers now. So, it had to get technical support.

Please let me know if you have more information about ES9028Q2M

Thanks for your suggestion.

Regards,
Ian

es9028q2m supposed to be direct replacement for es9018k2m. Like es9028 for es9018.
I do not have much information on that other what is already officially published.
 
@Ian,

One thing to consider if it is not tool late of course.
Regarding bitperfect volume control and fir selection.
As alternative to writing the drivers the following thing could be done:
Design an daughter board with some eprom on it where as input you could have a 10k regular pot. Pot will work as voltage divider between 3.3V and GND. Eprom senses divided voltage and translates it to appropriate I2C volume level command.
I like such solution because it gives you an analog feeling of volume control (regular pot) while being bit perfect at the same time. Such solution is used by es9018 sabre buffalo from twisteadperaaudio and soekris dam1021. I love it.
As for the FIR selection, for me it could be done in form of jumpers. Once chosen and set stays there forever, at least in my case.
Not sure what is others preference ...
What do you think?
 
@Ian,

One thing to consider if it is not tool late of course.
Regarding bitperfect volume control and fir selection.
As alternative to writing the drivers the following thing could be done:
Design an daughter board with some eprom on it where as input you could have a 10k regular pot. Pot will work as voltage divider between 3.3V and GND. Eprom senses divided voltage and translates it to appropriate I2C volume level command.
I like such solution because it gives you an analog feeling of volume control (regular pot) while being bit perfect at the same time. Such solution is used by es9018 sabre buffalo from twisteadperaaudio and soekris dam1021. I love it.
As for the FIR selection, for me it could be done in form of jumpers. Once chosen and set stays there forever, at least in my case.
Not sure what is others preference ...
What do you think?

Hi TioFrancotirador,

That's a very good idea. I like it. I'll take it into consideration.

ES9018 volume control is not bitperfact because it is a digital volume control. But it's 32 bit volume control so the accuracy is not bad.

Regards,
Ian
 
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I do like the idea of a separate microprocessor to configure the DAC chip and enable the volume control. Similar to how Twisted Pear did the Buffalo DAC series... basically they need no driver, the configuration is handled on-board. DOING a driver appears to be a headache at first that keeps on giving as you have to modify it for new base distro releases and new features... Ian, you DEFINITELY want to stay out of that world!

Use the microprocessor for configuration and control and use the basic I2S output driver that is available in ALL of the distros today.

My 2 cents on this!

Greg in Mississippi
 
I do like the idea of a separate microprocessor to configure the DAC chip and enable the volume control. Similar to how Twisted Pear did the Buffalo DAC series... basically they need no driver, the configuration is handled on-board. DOING a driver appears to be a headache at first that keeps on giving as you have to modify it for new base distro releases and new features... Ian, you DEFINITELY want to stay out of that world!

Use the microprocessor for configuration and control and use the basic I2S output driver that is available in ALL of the distros today.

My 2 cents on this!

Greg in Mississippi

Hi Greg,

Interesting approach but player software still can't get access to the nice ESS hardware volume control or other ESS features :-(

Possibly a driver for this "separate microprocessor" could be made that would not infringe on ESS restrictions on open source drivers for their chips. ??

-Tim
 
ESS controller

Hi guys,

Sorry for absent this thread for a long time. I'm working on something very interesting.

Yes, it's a tiny ESS DAC controller that designed for Raspberry Pi.

You just need to plug in it into the GPIO port, then you will have everything you want for your ESS DAC. I really like this small gear.

With a 32bit ARM cortex processor, it's pretty powerful however.

@TioFrancotirador
Thank you so much for your ideas about this project. I hope you enjoy a free ESS controller from me. I believe in three weeks... :)

I'll have more details later.


EssController1
by Ian, on Flickr

Regards,
Ian
 
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