I have spent a fair bit of time reading up on the avr32 board recommended to me in
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=140139http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=140139
and I have found a familiar problem: all the online information presumes I have at least 30% more understanding than I actually do to be able to start reading !!
Since these questions are quite different from the older thread I thought it best to start a new one. (Hope that's OK).
I have tried to piece things together including the beginnings of a plan to use one, and would be grateful if those who understand these things could correct me if wrong.
(And please forgive me if these are dumb questions - I really have tried to confirm these online, but it isn't as easy as you would think).
1. This board is not a true computer, such as a mini-itx board would be, it is more like a specialised router. It needs a power supply; specified in some voltage range of 9-15 volts or something. I presume this can be a SMPS wall-wart, right?
2. Depending on how it is programmed, it receives information at one of its ports (ethernet, USB, serial) and outputs at another having possibly processed things a bit. (Although probably not much...)
3. The board already has an OS installed, but you can configure a new one (somehow) and download it onto the board. Same applies to downloading software. It appears that you can use ssh and sftp to do this remotely.
4. On the wiki somewhere they talk about connecting ethernet port (to the LAN) *and* the serial port (to a computer). Do you really need this? Can the board run only with the ethernet connection? (The answer should be yes, I think, or what's the point?)
5. My basic idea would be to put the thing in a box with an external wall-wart power supply, connect it to the LAN at one end and pull I2S out of the other, to be connected to a DAC. (Possibly in the same box as the board, possibly in a separate box, connected by a short cat5 cable or something.) I then do whatever downloading/uploading of OS and software is necessary (this appears to be explained better on their wiki than the preliminaries are). This done, I send .wav files (possible other formats) from the main computer to the board, which are then sent to the DAC and become music. Is all this going towork?
6. A second phase would be to fix up some sort of interface so that music can be chosen and changed without going to the server in another room. The easiest but most expensive way would be a laptop connected to the other ethernet port; I'd like to hear about other suggestions.
Well, I'd be grateful for any help and advice people can give.
Cheers
Nigel
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=140139http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=140139
and I have found a familiar problem: all the online information presumes I have at least 30% more understanding than I actually do to be able to start reading !!
Since these questions are quite different from the older thread I thought it best to start a new one. (Hope that's OK).
I have tried to piece things together including the beginnings of a plan to use one, and would be grateful if those who understand these things could correct me if wrong.
(And please forgive me if these are dumb questions - I really have tried to confirm these online, but it isn't as easy as you would think).
1. This board is not a true computer, such as a mini-itx board would be, it is more like a specialised router. It needs a power supply; specified in some voltage range of 9-15 volts or something. I presume this can be a SMPS wall-wart, right?
2. Depending on how it is programmed, it receives information at one of its ports (ethernet, USB, serial) and outputs at another having possibly processed things a bit. (Although probably not much...)
3. The board already has an OS installed, but you can configure a new one (somehow) and download it onto the board. Same applies to downloading software. It appears that you can use ssh and sftp to do this remotely.
4. On the wiki somewhere they talk about connecting ethernet port (to the LAN) *and* the serial port (to a computer). Do you really need this? Can the board run only with the ethernet connection? (The answer should be yes, I think, or what's the point?)
5. My basic idea would be to put the thing in a box with an external wall-wart power supply, connect it to the LAN at one end and pull I2S out of the other, to be connected to a DAC. (Possibly in the same box as the board, possibly in a separate box, connected by a short cat5 cable or something.) I then do whatever downloading/uploading of OS and software is necessary (this appears to be explained better on their wiki than the preliminaries are). This done, I send .wav files (possible other formats) from the main computer to the board, which are then sent to the DAC and become music. Is all this going towork?
6. A second phase would be to fix up some sort of interface so that music can be chosen and changed without going to the server in another room. The easiest but most expensive way would be a laptop connected to the other ethernet port; I'd like to hear about other suggestions.
Well, I'd be grateful for any help and advice people can give.
Cheers
Nigel
tritosine said:
Actually, while I am grateful for the link, this is exactly the kind of thing that seems to suppose I know more than I do... I'm quite willing to put the time into learning what I need, but I was hoping to hear that someone had actually used this thing successfully before buying... (The original poster in the link you gave also has a long thread here on diyaudio
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=135313
that I tried to follow, but it still isn't clear to me whether he got his board to wrok satisfactorily - elsewhere here I read he dropped the ethernet DAC idea in favor of USB, which isn't very hopeful... again, supposing I understood correctly.)
I guess what I am hoping is that someone can confirm that I have at least understood what I put in the original post correctly... or at least tell me they used it and got it to work...
Cheers
Nigel
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