XMOS-based Asynchronous USB to I2S interface

Hi Lucian,

I think we have the answer. My good friend Robin (you know him) came by today with his good scope and helped me (ok he did it) sort it out. When WaveIO receives a DSD signal, the frequency output from BCLK (going to buffalo DCK) is 1.4 MHz, from LRCK (going to buffalo D1) is 2.8MHz and from DATA (going to buffalo D2) is 1.4MHz. What we believe should be happening is that BCLK should have the 2.8MHz output and the other 2 (going to D1/D2) should be 1.4MHz. I am not sure if this is a driver or firmware issue but you would know this better. Anyway, if you could get me an update for whichever is the problem I can test it for you :D. Most important, if you really want to dump the Win8.1 installation...you probably can.:cool: Let me know if you need more info and I will try to provide it.

thanks,

Nick
 
Ok, well that's not fun at all. I will wait for your result with the evil OS! :eek:

[...]Most important, if you really want to dump the Win8.1 installation...you probably can.:cool: Let me know if you need more info and I will try to provide it.
Nick

Now, when time is a very luxury thing, I somehow managed to spare some and play with Windows 8. Well, I really want to thank you for valuable infos but bare with me when I say that I'm still in the process of installing that OS! Firstly I managed to install it on a big partition where I found some free space and now I really hate that decision because I cannot remove entirely this damn OS from it! :confused: I guess I have to move all infos from it and format!
I feel I'm participating in a dumb movie or something! :mad: Either way, Christmas preparation took all my free time (whatever was left) so I'll be back when there's some to play with this DSD thingy.
Meanwhile I received a new pack of drivers from Thesycon and soon I'll customized it and make new WaveIO drivers for Windows! I can't recall the version's number but it's not so important for now!
Be back when time will allow,
L

P.S. Just for fun, have you reversed those DSD signals? :p
 
Looking for help >> So I would like to connect the WaveIO to 2 TDA1541 chips (want to use these in parallel). How do I do that? Do I need something else than just some wire? Quite confused to be honest :confused:.

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Found a clue here:
TDA1541A DAC through I2S : DACs - Page 2 - Volumio

The TDA1541A doesn't have SCK, it has; pin1 = LRCK, pin 2 = BCK, pin3 = Data, pin5 =gnd.

The TDA1541 has SCK. With the TDA1541 BCK, LRCK and data are the same pins as the TDA1541A, however, you connect pin 4 (DataR/SCK) to pin 2 (BCK), and it should work.

And I have TDA1541 (non A) so I am should know enough now right?
 
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Oups, didn't see a brand new and major revision is going to be launched... I will put my name on the waiting list for this one !

@t fellows : may someone explain what is the daughter board please...

Has someone tested the Wave i/o on a Synology NAS usb output (Linux based but don't know the ditrib behind...) ? I plan to do this to supress a SB Duet and its spidf output... but still use Logitech server which is embeded in a Synology package (and use a simple smartphone as remote controll !)

thanks in advance

regards, Eldam
yes i do. After testing waveIO on a cubitruck and Raspi b and b+ i was not satisfied with the sound of the waveIO using volumio 1.5 and a mambo dac v 3.0.
the combination of a synology ds114 and a waveIO sounds much more audiophile than anyone of the cubi and raspi does.
After changing the firmware to the new beta, removing U11 and the i2s isolator the sound is close to perfect... but only close. I hope a db is able to fix the last percent missing...

regards
limbik 5
 
DSD Connection re-mapping

Just for fun?:whazzat:

Hi Lucian,

We were able to experiment some more with this.:snail:

First of all this was only tested on the uBNC non-isolated connections. The connections are absolutely fine for PCM signals.

For DSD, the signal currently being sent to:

LRCK must be remapped to BCLK
BCLK must be remapped to DATA
DATA must be remapped to LRCK

This way you get the clock data on LRCK and the L/R signals on the correct pins. With the terminals rewired in this way we were able to play DSD64, DSD128 and possibly even DSD256 :eek:(I need to be sure about this so don't count on it!).

Hopefully this gives you the info you need. Let me know if you need additional.

Happy New Year:cheers:

Nick
 
I have no idea when I messed up the output ports of XMOS chip so badly but here it is! In fact, if I remember correctly, I made couple of firmware versions on summer and this one is... I can't say which one for sure :eek:
After all, it wasn't a very 'bad' idea to switch the I2S/DSD signals and look for the "right path", yes?
Obviously, when I said "just for fun" I didn't say it to offend your or cause troubles with your Wave board, just had a strong feeling that switching signals will somehow solve the issue... for the moment.
As for DSD256, if I recall correctly, there's an option in Foobar for DSD to DSD conversion and I was able to go up to DSD512... but for a short while as WaveIO seems to be *not so stable* for this sample rate... Still, DSD256 went smoothly on my Win7 x64 laptop.
Happy New Year to all of you... as it's my first post in 2015,
Lucian
 
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After all, it wasn't a very 'bad' idea to switch the I2S/DSD signals and look for the "right path", yes?
Obviously, when I said "just for fun" I didn't say it to offend your or cause troubles with your Wave board, just had a strong feeling that switching signals will somehow solve the issue... for the moment

Not a bad idea at all as it proves that all is well once the connections are right. :p

And naturally no offense taken :cool:

Nick
 
U5

Lucian sent a new U5 to me (many thanks to you, Lucian), cause my board was an old one that didn't allow firmware upgrade. I removed the old chip, soldered the new one and upgraded to the 0x0333 firmware.
I'm puzzled, maybe my memory fails (and I cannot test the old version anymore), but it seems to me that my audio system sounds better now (nothing else changed).
Does anyone who replaced the U5 and upgraded the firmware fron 0x0330 to 0x0333 experienced the same?
 
Well I bought a second, newer board with the s/w upgradable firmware chip and used it to replace my 2012 WaveIO. I confirmed with Lucian that they were otherwise identical (and they are visually in all aspects), and I too found the newer one to be slightly better.

Sadly, 352.4/384--the reason I got the newer board in the first place--still does not work with my PCM1704K board, but that is not the WaveIO's fault.
 
No kernelstream buffer

Hello,
When playing a iso file, everything seams to be OK, but there is no sound
and when consulting TUSB Audio Spy, I can see that there is no kernelstream buffer

I'm playing my music with Jriver in combination with Jplay
Jplay use kernel stream


What is going wrong here and what to do about it :confused:
 
Well I bought a second, newer board with the s/w upgradable firmware chip and used it to replace my 2012 WaveIO. I confirmed with Lucian that they were otherwise identical (and they are visually in all aspects), and I too found the newer one to be slightly better.

Sadly, 352.4/384--the reason I got the newer board in the first place--still does not work with my PCM1704K board, but that is not the WaveIO's fault.

I successfully upgraded the firmware to 333 and noticed a slight improvement. I then upgraded to the test firmware available from Lorien's website (I believe that this was produced as a result of testing between Ian - of FIFO project fame - and Lorien) and when I could get it to work it did again improve things.

Initially I couldn't get it to work at all and the suggestion was made that it was because I needed a powered USB cable. I tested again last week and ensured power to the USB input of the waveio. No joy! But I power cycled a couple of times and then it played...yes!! But the excitement was short-lived as there is no sound 9/10 times I power up. The card is recognised by the system and is detected as the correct version of the bios (666 from memory) but no sound. Unfortunately, I have had to re-flash back to 333.

@Lorien, I'm happy to run some tests if any data would be useful to you - just let me know what you need.

And if anyone has any suggestions then I'm all ears.
 
If you are having trouble playing DSD (or extracted SACD iso) data then refer to post 2233 a couple of pages back. The firmware 6.60 (I think that's the number) has an output issue with DSD data that I'm hoping @Lorien is working on ;). I have no issue playing PCM with 6.60 so if that's where your problem lies then I'm no help to you. :(
 
Playing right now, ISO with Jplay as player in KernelStream mode using UltraStream, JRiver as library, sound is fantastic and till now no hickups
I have done a clean install of windows server 2012
Settings in usb controle = low latency and 8192 samples

great work Lorien, thanks
Hope for the others to get the same results coz it sounds very nice :)