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Cronus - It's about time.

Thank you for this info and congratulation on your great works. I'm very happy to have this occasion of ordering these items at last.

BTW, how do you pronounce Hermes? Simply in an English way or somewhat in a French way like a luxurious brand, or even in a way back to the ancient Greek?

I know the question is silly but couldn't resist to ask :D.

twluke

Thank you.

Classical Greek :)
 
On the subject of clocks, I was planning to use NDK clocks with the Cronus/Hermes, but some Googling suggests there's a notoriously high variance in performance parameters of NDK clocks, even within the same production batch.
What do others think? Does the choice of Crystek mean assured performance?
 
how do you pronounce Hermes?
... in a way back to the ancient Greek?
Classical Greek :)
- Cronus is the Greek god who was eventually regarded as the god of time by the Romans.
(not to be confused with "Chronos" the Greek god associated with time-keeping)

- Rhea is the sister/wife of Cronus.

- Hermes is the Greek god associated with speed.
 
On the subject of clocks, I was planning to use NDK clocks with the Cronus/Hermes, but some Googling suggests there's a notoriously high variance in performance parameters of NDK clocks, even within the same production batch.
What do others think? Does the choice of Crystek mean assured performance?

We use Crystek in production precisely because they are consistent - proven - and excellent. :) But the Rhea boards do fit NDK. And Rhea has local bypass for clocks which require it.
 
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Great project!

Seems really nicely done.

May I ask if a Hermes-Pi would be possible?

I know Raspberry Pi doesn't accept Master Clock input, but it can accept Bit Clock input.
So a Hermes-Pi which divides the master clock by the appropriate factor could feed the RPi with a nice bit clock.
Of course, a new alsa driver must be done to select the dividing factor on the board according to the music samplerate, but I don't think it should be too difficult.

Just food for thought! :rolleyes:
A lot of Raspberry Pi are around and a Hermes-Pi + Cronus would be the ultimate (synchronous and no delay) solution for them to feed any i2s Dac.
 
For someone still in the stone age, using Hiface SPDIF into Buffalo2, can you lay out how Cronus would be typically used?

A linux host like BBB or a USB>I2S adapter like Amanero receives master clock from Cronus, then BBB outputs stream to Cronus, Cronus reclocks stream again before sending data to DAC. Cronus connects to BBB via isolator called Hermes. BBB uses swapable clock modules called Rhea. Is this how it works?

Cronus streams to DAC via I2S?

I read this page, but I understand about 1/2 of it. :scratch: Thanks

Found this old post from Russ. But any further clarification is welcome.

Can Cronus adapt automatically between 44.1kHz sample rate to 96kHz sample rate, or is there a manual switch between the different Rheas?
 
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I ordered one Otto-II for this purpose. Do I need two? I had planned to switch I2s to Buff-III from Hermes BBB and Hermes Amanero.

It depends at which point you are switching. :)

You *could* technically just use one. Switching only the output I2S/DSD signals - but this would require some work. Well using OTTO-II for this purpose in general will require some work, :)

It seems people really will want a Hermes MUX. I will make it happen.
 
Great news! Thanks for all your efforts Russ. I appreciate that this fantastic solution is aimed squarely at Buffalo but I'm still so in love with my TDA1541A NOS DAC. I'm capable of joining the dots up but not that confident in this area.

Would there be any hardware/software impediment to running a BBB Hermes/Cronus/Rhea into my DAC? I know I'd be limited to 96kHz but that's fine by me.