The Well synchronized asynchronous FIFO buffer - Slaved I2S reclocker

May I ask, are you referring to the JL Sounds optional oscillator board that stacks on top of I2SoverUSB, or something else?
This one: http://jlsounds.com/oscil.html

Reason I ask is because I have a FIFO_Pi and was impressed with it at the time. Also have the JL Sounds oscillator board, but was not so much impressed. If that's the same one you tried, I can tell you what I saw as some of the problems that would account for it not equaling FIFO_Pi performance.
 
Another satisfied customer (y)

First off thank you very much Andrea for what you have done for digital playback with the recent clocks, fifo and DAC.
I got it all hooked up yesterday with a NDP-1 SD digital turntable (incl. 10Mhz clock) with I2S out, it is the cleanest and quietest front end I have come across in many years of experimenting.
One of the keys to SD playback success is using SLC SD cards for the playback of the music files.
I also used LT3045 HPULN based Power Supplies from mpaudio for powering all electronics.

The result….well incredible, beyond my expectations!

I have been skeptical that digital audio could ever match my reference Studer A812 with master tape copies and also a good vinyl setup with UHQR 45 rpm vinyl, but what I am hearing now has laid to rest that skepticism.
That rich midrange that ¼ inch 30 IPS master tape copies adds is now matched and even added to in the higher frequencies with this digital setup.
I have gotten close with Lampizator and Meitner DACs and more recently on several group DAC builds with various incarnations of your clocks and Lifepo4 / Supercap supplies, but I could never match that rich midrange when compared to Tape.

The end of my playback chain has the DAC lite feeding direct into a Gryphon Essence Preamplifier then to Gryphon Essence Mono’s into Wilson Audio Alexia 2’s with no buffer or caps for low pass filtering on the DAC output.

To finish I am happy I have now reached my destination digital setup and will begin the journey to find a good streamer with capable I2S out and/or USB to I2S to finish this digital journey which started way back in 2013 with a fellow bunch of enthusiastic digital audio pioneers on Tir Na Hifi forums here in Ireland.

Sad to say the Tape and Vinyl will now take a back seat for those reference listening sessions when you want to be transported to other places but I am sure they will get occasional outings for the sake of nostalgia.

Many thanks again Andrea.

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Hello,
It looks impressive with such a big number of boards!
If only the '' assembly '' could be done in a more modular '' style '' by stacking boards one upon the other. All these tiny u.fl cables give me the creeps. BUT the two black ones give me more confidence than the garden hose style i am using.
The professionals ( like the designer )who are using these kind of connections on an almost daily basis have a much bigger toolbox than the average diy person visiting this site.
From what i have read so far these connectors have a kind of limited ''life'''It even says in the white paper of the plug ! If this will oblige you to replace just the cable after a year of running test it will be ok. You will only need one connection that is not 100% '' correct '' to get something working not up to the highest level or even not working at all.
There are quiet a lot of people here who will keep trying to get further improvements which will usually require to take things apart.
Build ( compose) something, make it work and leave it untouched for 5 years has its charm too.
Greetings, eduard
 
Not in use, I purchased them to allow future experimentation with other DACs I have here.
Sligolad, I'd be very interested to hear your comments on using other DACs with the FIFO once you have done your experiments. I have no doubt both FIFO and Dac lite are of the highest quality, but I'd like to have an idea how much each is contributing to the excellent results you are reporting.
 
Sligolad, I'd be very interested to hear your comments on using other DACs with the FIFO once you have done your experiments. I have no doubt both FIFO and Dac lite are of the highest quality, but I'd like to have an idea how much each is contributing to the excellent results you are reporting.
Might take some time but I will report once I get to it. At the moment the DAC is still improving and I am planning a few road trips with this setup starting next weekend. Going to get more ears on it from some fellow enthusiasts and serious vinyl heads before I go tinkering again.
Looking forward to seeing reactions :oops:
I have a USB to I2S converter on order so I want to test this out as well. All my collection of converters are a bit outdated with old Xmos chips.
 
May I ask, are you referring to the JL Sounds optional oscillator board that stacks on top of I2SoverUSB, or something else?
This one: http://jlsounds.com/oscil.html

Reason I ask is because I have a FIFO_Pi and was impressed with it at the time. Also have the JL Sounds oscillator board, but was not so much impressed. If that's the same one you tried, I can tell you what I saw as some of the problems that would account for it not equaling FIFO_Pi performance.

Yes, same board. I would certainly appreciate if you share your opinion.
 
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...appreciate if you share your opinion.

Will do. Reclocking in I2SoverUSB is always done in the CPLD regardless of the clock source. Probably not as clean as well designed D-flop flops. Also, thought the clock board with Crystek 957 on it sounded worse the NDK SDA clocks that come stock with I2SoverUSB. Some things I didn't like about the clock board itself were (1) the use of ferrites to isolate clock power (IMHO hysteresis noise can result in jitter which affects SQ), and (2) that both clocks were not kept running at all times, rather their enable pins were used for clock selection. Experience here showed that is not optimal for clock stability. Moreover, Allo apparently found the same with their Katana DAC (they are very measurement oriented, so I assume they measured some difference). Rather than use relay clock switching or clock enable pins, Allo opted to use the enable pins on NB3L553-D clock buffers, one buffer for each clock. IIRC the buffers were only used to drive the dac, not for any other clock distribution.