• Disclaimer: This Vendor's Forum is a paid-for commercial area. Unlike the rest of diyAudio, the Vendor has complete control of what may or may not be posted in this forum. If you wish to discuss technical matters outside the bounds of what is permitted by the Vendor, please use the non-commercial areas of diyAudio to do so.

B3SE-Pro experimental dual mono firmware.

Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.
Left channel will be the DAC with the address jumper (on GPIO header) open (ADDR 0x90) Right channel will be the DAC with the address jumper closed (ADD 0x92)


if anyone tries it and runs into any issues - let me know. I will try to get it sorted :)

Comparing master...dual-mono * twistedpearaudio/Buffalo-III-SE-Pro-On-Board-Firmware * GitHub

Russ
IMG_2178.jpg
gpio.png




Before I make a stupid mistake can anyone confirm that I need to put a jumper in place like this to identify the DAC board that will serve as the right channel:


gpiopinout_zpsavve9dcc.png


In other words which pin is number 11? The only reason I check is because the GPIO's numbering system on the pi is all over the place and I don't want to mess up ;-)


Thanks for any help you can give. I'm making progress with converting 9018 to 9028 dual mono!
 
Last edited:
Trouble shooting dual mono 9028, running sync'd

Dual mono 9028 board swap out is complete, analogue output phase is changed and dual firmware chip that Brian kindly included in my order is installed. I have perfect sound from Left channel (master DAC) but nothing at all from right (slave DAC). Hmmm. The master appears to correctly initialise with Lock LED lighting but there is nothing visible happening on the slave DAC.

Troubleshooting steps so far (All testing has been done using PCM from 44.1k up to 384k – with the same results):


  • Firstly I checked the regs on the slave during playback and not during playback. These measure fine and similar to the master DAC board:
    • VDD: 1.25v
    • DVCC: 3.3v
    • AVCC: 3.28v
    • AVCC: 3.27v
    • VDD-XO – n/a
  • I checked slave DAC configuration (firmware chip removed, R7 shorted, GND,SDA,and SCL from I2C headers connected to master) – Looked OK
    • Jumper between pin 11 and 12 on GPIO (address jumper) to set RIGHT channel
  • I checked master DAC configuration (sw1 switch 1 set to PCM/DSD, volume control jumpered, dual mono firmware installed – Looked OK
    • Address jumper open to set LEFT channel
    • All other switches at default setting
  • Then for a quick test to see if there was anything fundamentally wrong with slave, I (as far as easily possible, see ** below) reverted the slave dac to stereo mode:
    • Placed standard firmware chip back in
    • placed volume jumper
    • sw1 switch 1 set to PCM/DSD
    • Removed GPIO jumper between pin 11 and 12
    • **I left the R7 shorted
    • **I left analogue outputs wired together as per dual mono

Upon power up both lock and auto mute LEDs light up. Playing music results in the automute LED going off and I can hear the music behind a thick veil of white noise. I’d appreciate any suggestions as to what to try to get this up and running.

My previous setup was two BIIISE boards running in dual mono syncmode and there have been no changes to the signal routing upstream, so I am confident that the u.FL connections are good and the source is working well.


I wonder if this is anything related to what JoeyDD reported as the report sounds similar?

I get a high pitched constant noise superimposed on the music, and only in the right channel. Changing back to DSD256 the noise completely disappears. Not sure if this could be a firmware issue, or any of the other parts that come before the buffalo
 
Programming Bufallo firmware with Tiny AVR Programmer and a Mac

Hi Pawlus, thanks very much for that pointer and also to the other post. Really helpful. I will investigate once I've got the standard dual mono firmware working.

Just following this up in case it's of help to others. This will help users get things set up for changing their firmware. I'm using a Mac but the software you need is the same:

1) Install homebrew. For mac instructions, see here: How to Install Homebrew on Mac
2) Once Homebrew is installed, next install AVRDude: brew install avrdude
3) Download java:

brew cask install java

or look here: Java SE - Downloads | Oracle Technology Network | Oracle

4) Download AVR8 burn-o-mat to give yourself a GUI to work with although you can use the command line with just AVRDude installed: AVR8 Burn-O-Mat avrdude GUI
For some reason, for me, that version of AVR8 burn-o-mat was corrupt so I downloaded this version and launched the .jar file:
http://avr8-burn-o-mat.aaabbb.de/AVR8_Burn-O-Mat_2_1_2.zip

5) AVRdude manual is here: http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/avrdude/avrdude-doc-6.3.pdf

I haven't moved onto actually programming the firmware yet but if people are interested I will update and happy to turn this into a wiki post which PC users can then add to.
Cheers,
Crom
 
Thanks Russ. I'll get some pictures up asap.


1) Great, I didn't know about connecting the reset signals together. Looking at the GPIO pinout I would connect them by connecting pin 1 on one board with same pin on the other board, right?


2) Also, just to cover off one question in my mind...is pin 11 as per post 1 above?


3) I might be jumping the gun but the fact that the slave DAC didn't initialise would be explained by me not connecting the reset pins but what would explain the white noise 'covering the music when I ran the slave DAC as a standard stereo (with R7 shorted and the channel outputs connected)?


Thanks for jumping on this Russ, much appreciated!
Crom
 
Great, I'll get that done.


Here are the pics:


1) Master L-channel DAC board

Master%20L-channel%20DAC%20board%202_zpsheipfvvc.jpg





2) Master L-channel DAC board 2
Master%20L-channel%20DAC%20board_zpszufkqq1r.jpg





3) Top down showing output connections

Top%20down%20showing%20output%20connections%202_zpsaltkgw4s.jpg


4) Slave R-channel DAC board

Slave%20R-channel%20DAC%20board_zpsxrrlm16t.jpg




5) Slave R-channel DAC board 2

Slave%20R-channel%20DAC%20board_zpsxrrlm16t.jpg





6) Slave R-channel DAC board 3

Slave%20R-channel%20DAC%20board%203_zpso9zzqlmi.jpg



7) Slave R-channel DAC board 4

Slave%20R-channel%20DAC%20board%204_zpstxztnpd5.jpg
 
OK, I've been away for a couple of days but I'll be back home later on and will link up the reset pins and give things a whirl. Did you spot anything amiss in the pictures? Pretty difficult to tell but I should give a big 'shoutout' to my wife for helping out remotely ;-) Let me know if you need better ones and I'll get to it later!
 
Thanks for the help Russ. Agnes Obel is sounding wonderful at 44.1k and from both channels!


With the reset connection added both DACs mirrored each other upon initialisation and it is sounding fabulous even from a cold start. After a warm up I'll try some higher bitrate / DSD and have a play with the various filters.


Thanks again,
Crom
 
Thanks for the help Russ. Agnes Obel is sounding wonderful at 44.1k and from both channels!


With the reset connection added both DACs mirrored each other upon initialisation and it is sounding fabulous even from a cold start. After a warm up I'll try some higher bitrate / DSD and have a play with the various filters.


Thanks again,
Crom

Excellent - glad to hear that!
 
As promised, here's a report on my perception of how the sound has changed from the 9018 boards and experiments in playing various formats and bitrates:

It is not a night-and-day difference but a worthwhile upgrade: Glare or digital shimmer has been removed from the top end. This takes a little getting used to and a couple of tracks sounded a little bottom-heavy to start off with, but there is now much more nuance and detail across the frequency range. There is an increased precision and immediacy to the sound - I think caused by better transient response. This increases the naturalness of acoustic instruments: pianos, voices, guitars all sound more "real" - my wife commented that Ben Webster and Oscar Peterson could have been sitting across the room from us. My acid test of some ACDC and Pantera now has increased viscera. The soundstage has increased a little in width and depth and separation is better...again, not huge changes but noticeable and appreciated. Worth it? Definitely. Congratulations Russ and Brian - just sounds lovely!!

PCM playback is perfect all the way up to 384k / 24bit.

DSD (via DoP) I've only tried 64 and 128 but at either of these I get intermittent white noise (generally one time per track lasting about 5 seconds and strangely at a very similar number of seconds after the track started). This noise only occurs on the slave DAC (right channel).

I also have random drop outs on both channels. These are relatively rare, happening once per 5 tracks and last anytime between 0.5 seconds and 2 seconds.

It's early days with me and DSD so I am sure that I will be able to improve on this. However, I would very much like to try the dual mono syncmode firmware. Is there anything I can do to help here, Russ?

Cheers,
Crom
 
Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.