You might have a problem with power supply current.
On board power supply ? You mean batteries ?
There will not be enough space on most boards. Parts cannot stand up too tall. Off board plug in power is a possibility. What about all the existing switching noise in the area ?
How much power are you looking at ? 10 to 20 watts classD ?
Remember as power goes up, at a point heatsinking will be required.
On board power supply ? You mean batteries ?
There will not be enough space on most boards. Parts cannot stand up too tall. Off board plug in power is a possibility. What about all the existing switching noise in the area ?
How much power are you looking at ? 10 to 20 watts classD ?
Remember as power goes up, at a point heatsinking will be required.
Yes, lots of problems need to be solved. Heat problem may be solved by heatpipes attached to computer case heatsink for silent cooling. See Zalman case. Power transformer can be located off board, in pc case. PCI card may be screened for noise. Would be nice to have a PCI card version of the UcD180...
Attachments
The demand for PCI power amp would be tiny, probably limited to "emergency computer-based audio".
There's no real technical challenges. The market may not be there, or believed to be not there yet, therefore no product for it.
Any idea about potential market(s) for PCI audio?
There's no real technical challenges. The market may not be there, or believed to be not there yet, therefore no product for it.
Any idea about potential market(s) for PCI audio?
Member
Joined 2003
Why?
What would be the advantage of having a PCI amplifier? What data is going to be sent to it through the PCI bus? digital audio (SPDIF) information?
I really don't see how this would be an advantage at all over an external amplifier, besides not taking up the desk space.
What would be the advantage of having a PCI amplifier? What data is going to be sent to it through the PCI bus? digital audio (SPDIF) information?
I really don't see how this would be an advantage at all over an external amplifier, besides not taking up the desk space.
I've installed emergency computer speech systems. The amps have backup and the computer is the thing that is not reliable.
Maybe we should put the computer in the amp?
But if it runs Windoze as well, it'll crash too!
We can't win.
-Chris
Maybe we should put the computer in the amp?
But if it runs Windoze as well, it'll crash too! We can't win.
-Chris
Somewhere, somehow, I've seen this before. PCI card with a Tripath chip.
No idea where I found it. Might have been in Korea.
No idea where I found it. Might have been in Korea.
I'v had this idea before, and as for market, computer modification has quicly become a huge market. using 1-2 pci ports and making a 2*25W amp wich gets it signal internally from the pci would make a great product, and i belive it would indeed have somewhat of a market.
Thomas B said:
You are right, but noise isn't that big problem as you think... look at Lynx Studio professional pci cards and you will find that they have great specs, even measured in computer 🙂. They don't have screening at all.
Screening is good method but have some weakness...
In standard CD drive space you can have pretty big power supply, but where you place auxiliary power inlet... in front of PC?
Also, if you place near all main modules "off board", which purpose have name: "PCI card power amplifier"?
Best regards
boggy
Indeed Tripath has released a complete 2-channel Class-T digital audio power amplifier rated at 30 WRMS of power into 4 ohms; the Tripath TIO-TA1101B. It does not plug into the PCI bus for the audio signal but uses internal PC power supply. Tripath claim audiophile sound quality.
What I am looking for is a truly high end audiophile solution. I think it would be great to get the signal and power from the PCI bus eliminating the cabling and perhaps better sound quality. (Sorry for the "emergency" word slip, I meant with the emergence of computer based audio.)
Now if only Hypex or any other Class-D manufacturer could catch on.
What I am looking for is a truly high end audiophile solution. I think it would be great to get the signal and power from the PCI bus eliminating the cabling and perhaps better sound quality. (Sorry for the "emergency" word slip, I meant with the emergence of computer based audio.)
Now if only Hypex or any other Class-D manufacturer could catch on.
Attachments
Member
Joined 2002
Re: Why?
WINDOWZZ 😀
I don't see a point either. There is lots of noise in a computer and putting a class d amp on a pci card into a computer would just make more and induce more into the audio path. BUT having a external one would be better.. why would you want a amplifier in the case ?
DcibeL said:
WINDOWZZ 😀
I don't see a point either. There is lots of noise in a computer and putting a class d amp on a pci card into a computer would just make more and induce more into the audio path. BUT having a external one would be better.. why would you want a amplifier in the case ?
Member
Joined 2003
This isn't that bad of an idea, since it makes for a nice little computer amp that is extraordinarily cheap since you don't pay for the case or power supply. It looks like there are tracks of the board for soldering on a can over the amp to reduce noise. This is a good idea, though I don't know how much heat the little amp IC will produce. There should be a thermal pad placed inbetween the IC and the can I would think so that it can act as a bit of a heatsink.Thomas B said:
AudioXpress had a review of an item like this a few years ago. It looked like a PCI card with two LM3886 or similar chips attached. Can't recall the name though.
I dont think such a project would be two difficult and probably be easily achievable with an FPGA, a DAC and chip based module.
The code to bridge PCI/PCIe bus is avaible from opencores.org (as well as a PCI dev board, which has host computer drivers (for Linux)), once you can send audio data to the FPGA, dumping the data to the DAC would be trivial, a chip amp solution could produce maybe upto 18W into 4 ohms.
As long as the layout of the analogue signal path was carefully designed and the computers (dirty) PSU was adaqualty bypassed I cannot see why significant performance could be obtained.
Extra features could include the ability to decode compessed audio with the FPGA and a boost converter to up the voltage to produce more power.
The host software (i.e. drivers for windows) would be also require dev time but hopefully most of the grunt work has already been done and a generic PCI/PCIe bus interface exists and can be used.
The code to bridge PCI/PCIe bus is avaible from opencores.org (as well as a PCI dev board, which has host computer drivers (for Linux)), once you can send audio data to the FPGA, dumping the data to the DAC would be trivial, a chip amp solution could produce maybe upto 18W into 4 ohms.
As long as the layout of the analogue signal path was carefully designed and the computers (dirty) PSU was adaqualty bypassed I cannot see why significant performance could be obtained.
Extra features could include the ability to decode compessed audio with the FPGA and a boost converter to up the voltage to produce more power.
The host software (i.e. drivers for windows) would be also require dev time but hopefully most of the grunt work has already been done and a generic PCI/PCIe bus interface exists and can be used.
Hi to all. A while back I was reading up on tripath. One of the items I came across was some of the newer apple computers' motherboards have a tripath chip on them (iirc 2x8w). I also saw mention of an internal amp- it was one of the sound card makers (emu?). It's been a long time but I called and they said korea or japan only- unless you become a dealer and promise like 1k/ month business. -mark
Hi,
For reasons of EMI, regulation and heat you'll always be better off with the already industry saturated powered speaker system than to have the amp inside the computer.
So the biggest if not only real market I can see for these would be for portable notebooks/laptop /presentation things where the speakers are built in as well.
Also you don't want the reliability of an OS to be the determining factor in the reliability of your amp, or to have to worry about what IRQ it's on affecting your sound quality or not.
Regards,
Chris
For reasons of EMI, regulation and heat you'll always be better off with the already industry saturated powered speaker system than to have the amp inside the computer.
So the biggest if not only real market I can see for these would be for portable notebooks/laptop /presentation things where the speakers are built in as well.
Also you don't want the reliability of an OS to be the determining factor in the reliability of your amp, or to have to worry about what IRQ it's on affecting your sound quality or not.
Regards,
Chris
I can confirm, the audio amp for a mac G5 is class-D, it was on Apple's documents somewhere, but don't have it at present time. Might as well be a Tripath - I'll open up a G5 at work and have a look.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.