Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
Due to legal issues that I was not aware of, this project is hereby terminated. Please do not make any more posts on this thread. Please do not ask any questions on this thread. I'm sorry to all of you that have been interested in this for quite some time, but this must cease now. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
Community Squeeze, as a project for the Wandboard has ended. It is no more! Do not purchase a Wandboard with the specific intention of installing a Community Squeeze HW on it. Community Squeeze is no longer available. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
JRatron wrote: Oooh, now there's a bit of good news, good work guys! :) Are you still planning to use the same Hammond case and do you still need a hand with the backplate design? cheers, James Yes it is the same case. I have been through 2 connector test boards and I need to do another. I have to change the RCA jacks, the current ones are a little too flimsy. Also the BNC jack is not quite positioned right, but that entails tweaking the position of 5 other jacks. It's a complicated dance to get it all just right. I'll send you one when I get it put together. Thanks, John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
Hi all, I'm hear to announce that this project is not dead! One of the members here, Greg Stewart has agreed to head up this project. Greg has enlisted a talented man to develop the custom driver needed to interface the iMX6 processor to my DAC hardware. It is actually playing music at this point. While working on the driver specs I realized that the interface into the iMX6 I had been planning on was not going to work. Some frantic manual reading later I found a different interface which will work for what we want. Unfortunately this was not directly available on the EDM connector. Almost all of the chip pins can be muxed to multiple logical signals so I was able to find pins that could be muxed to something that WAS on the EDM connector. Of course this meant that the original test board would not work, so I had to design a new test board. I gave the board design to Greg and he built several, the driver has been developed to work with this and is now playing music. This also means that the CSP1 board has to be modified for the new interface. Fortunately all the hard stuff such as giga-bit Ethernet, USB etc stay the same, it is just the I2S out that is changing. The driver is designed to work with Triode's SoA project, it is currently already working with SoA. The scope of the project is essentially the same. We will be offering it as a DIY group buy rather than a full out of the box product. You will need to buy a wandboard, this board and the case. The only assembly tool required is a screwdriver. The assembly consists of unscrewing the module from the wandboard, screwing it into the CSP1 board, sliding the board into the case and screwing in the back panel. All the details of the board are the same as discussed in this thread already. After some hiatus this project is going full steam again. I wish the thank Greg for taking over the project management for this and keeping things going. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
The project is definitely NOT dead! I am currently in discussions with a company that is willing to help us out by setting up a corporation so that both the software and hardware can be released without the developers fearing that someone will take their house away. This company will also help with the distribution and shipping of the hardware products for a small fee (which is what we had always planned on doing, I don't have time or resources to box up and ship hundreds of these things out of my garage!) They are willing to be completely hands off, we still control what happens. I haven't made a formal announcement yet, there are still a lot of discussions going on about the details, it's going to take some time to get it all worked out. The design is still the same, based on a Wandboard module, so those that have already bought a Wandboard or are thinking about it will not be out that investment. I'm sorry this has taken so long to get out there, it WILL happen, but I can't put an exact date on it yet. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What happened to communitysqueeze.org
This project has not died! It is undergoing restructuring due to some legal issues we had not fully understood when starting this. We are working hard at trying to come up with ways to work around the legal stuff and get back up and running again. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=101613 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
The hardware as discussed in this thread is not dead. The legal issues that happened with the software side made it abundantly clear that we cannot release any hardware without a corporation's legal protection. I am working on how to get that setup so this can go forward. Thanks for the interest from everybody. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
Kuro wrote: Gold is necessary in parts of the world where you have very humid climate or where you live close by the sea. Gold prevents the connectors from corroding. In HK where I live, this is absolutely necessary. In fact, cheap connectors with thin layer of gold don't work too good either. On another note... I have the intention to purchase the final DAC carrier board. My understanding is that the whole thing is to be fitted in a Hammond 1455T case. If this is the case, would there be room to add a micro SD card slot and two USB ports? I know the micro SD card slot issue has been brought up in the CSOS F19 thread recently. Now, having the card slot that is accessible by the user is great for updating the OS, etc. But more importantly, I'm thinking what if we put a faster micro SD controller in there to speed up the OS? Specifically, I run the LMS on my Wandboard Quad and I see that the speed of LMS is pretty much limited by the disc read/write speed (disc=micro SD). I'm using the Toshiba Exceria Type HD micro SD card. This card has 30MB/s write and 95MB/s read speed and it only costs me US$9 for 8GB. It'd be nice to be able to make use of a fast micro SD to speed up LMS or the OS in general. Finally, I have a suggestion for decoupling caps. I'd avoid using X7R ceramics as they are microphonics. For all my projects, I use Panasonic ECPU (or Cornell Dubilier) acrylic (PPS) films. They sounds wonderful and the only problem is that they do take up slightly more space. The size of a 0.1uF is 0805 instead of 0603 or smaller. IMHO, it is well worth it for using this film caps in all places instead of regular ceramics. There is no room at all for an Sd card slot on the back. There are 5 USB connectors (2 full size and 3 micro) already on the back. The boot SD card is part of the module and can be changed any time you wish, you just have to unscrew the front or back panel and slide the board out, change the SD card and replace. You can connect a USB interface SSD to the back or inside. There are three micro USB connectors on the board itself so you could put a small SSD inside. At this point I don't have a mounting bracket for such a thing. Additionally the quad has a SATA port which could be used for a small SSD inside. There is also a longer case with the same width and height, it would be easy to fit a 2.5 HD inside this case. On the caps, ceramics are used for the digital sections and PPS are used in some places for the analog section. I'm not using them every where, just where experience has shown them to be an advantage. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
I've been testing out some different RCA jacks for CSP1. I have it down to 2 choices: 1: very robust mounting to the board, can withstand a lot of force for tight plugs, nickel plated brass. 2: gold plated brass but not as robust mechanical connection, may eventually have problems with tight plugs. Both have silver plated copper center contact, they both cost about the same and both take up the same amount of space on the board. Any preferences out there? Thanks, John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
Mnyb wrote: Robust , would minimise returns and repairs . Spdiff is that one BNC ? Yes S/PDIF is a 75 ohm BNC. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
erland wrote: For my understanding, what would be the advantage with the gold plated brass alternative ? There are some people that equate gold connectors with high end. If they don't see a gold connector they will assume the device is cheap and no good. If I don't use gold connectors I don't a lot of people complaining it's not gold. My personal preference is for the more robust connector, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to have an uprising by not using gold connectors. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
JRatron wrote: Here's a quick dxf file for the blank standard back panel. http://www.willtheyfit.com/james/hammond-1455T1601.dxf No print or connector holes at this stage. The board will be here tomorrow, I have all the parts, I'll solder them in and send it to you. PM me with your address. Thanks, John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Ethernet appears disconnected
Since you have tried the setup as you have had it before and it doesn't work, I think you need to try doing something different than what it was before. What I would do is assign a static IP address (outside of the DHCP pool of course) and ping the TP from a computer plugged in to the same switch. So you have computer - switch - TP. The TP should be on the same subnet as the computer. If the TP does not respond to a ping in this configuration, something is really wrong. At this point try swapping out all the variables, try different cables, different ports on the switch, even a different switch if you have one. If none of THAT works, then assign a static address to the computer and try connecting direct to the TP without a switch, just one cable: computer - TP. Note that this is not trying to connect to LMS, just trying to get a ping response from the TP If THAT doesn't work you have something wrong with the TP. Since it seems like you have done all the usual software resets at this point. It it still won't talk to anything else I'm out of ideas. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=101400 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
JRatron wrote: Hi John, Has the plan changed from producing a back panel mockup PCB? I checked the data sheets on a couple of those connectors and wasn't happy that the basic info was sufficient as regards actual dimensions of protruding parts and mounting screw locations and such. It'd be possible to piece it all together given time and probably buying a bunch of bits to be certain, but measuring up a mocked up PCB with all connectors on would mean it's a much more straightforward job to get it right first time. Is that going to be possible? Yes, I am doing a mockup of just the back portion of the board. It is being manufactured right now, but will take about a week and a half to get here, then I have to solder all the parts in, then ship to you, it's going to take awhile. You had mentioned you might like to do a rendering of the connectors, I thought you might like a head start on getting models for everything. Thanks, John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
JJZolx wrote: There's no need to anchor any of the gang connectors to prevent them from flexing when connecting cables? As with the CIAudio DAC shown above? There are going to be screws. A couple more won't make the device any more difficult to assemble. There are no tall connectors. The only ganged connector is a dual USB type A, and it isn't very tall, AND it has a bunch of extra ground pins that solder into the board. I put a lot of thought into choosing connectors that will be mechanically sound as well as work well electrically. Everything that will have a fair amount of force applied has a strong mechanical connection to the board. It turned out that the headphone jack was the hardest to get right. Most of them have very wimpy pins that cannot withstand very much force. I was particularly concerned about this since in the last couple years I have had three of these jacks ripped off PC boards. The one I came up with is an especially robust jack with multiple mounting pins to distribute the force on the board. The tallest jacks are the XLR ones. They also have extra mounting pins to distribute force. I was still a little worried so I built a test board with these jacks and did torture tests with connectors from several different companies to make sure they were going work well with a lot of plugging and unplugging. I don't think there is going to be much in the way of mechanical issues with the design. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
JJZolx wrote: Is there a particular reason why it needs to be the exact same depth as the room within the case? Won't it be anchored to the rear plate in some manner? Nope, it slides into slots in the case and is held in by the front and back panels. As long as the dimensions are right it works quite well. We are trying to make things as simple as possible to assemble. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
JRatron wrote: I have the case here now, so I'll get the standard back panel drawn up shortly. If you still want to send me the mockup board with the connectors on, I'll get that sorted ASAP. Here is a PDF of the connectors on the back of the board, some are on the top and some on the bottom. From the left they are: top: headphone jack 3.5mm - SJ1-3523N bottom: RCA - KLPX-0848A-2-R-G top: XLR - NC3MAH bottom: RCA - KLPX-0848A-2-R-G top: XLR - NC3MAH bottom: TOSLINK - PLT133/T10W top: BNC - 364M795L bottom:power LED - WP138A8QMP top: barrel jack - PJ102A bottom: micro USB - 10104111-0001LF top: dual stacked full size A USB - 72309-8034BLF bottom: micro USB - 10104111-0001LF top: HDMI - 10029449-001RLF bottom: micro USB - 10104111-0001LF top: Ethernet - J0G0001NL bottom: micro USB - 10104111-0001LF There also needs to be a hole to mount the wi-fi antenna jack. It has its own pigtail coming from the module. It should be above the board. The connector on the module is on the left side. 15834 I hope this is enough info. Thanks, John S. +---+ |Filename: CSP1_back_panel.pdf | |Download: http://forums.slimdevices.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=15834| +---+ JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
JJZolx wrote: John, what are the dimensions of the CSP board? I take it 160mm wide, by what depth? It is 160mm wide x 162.9 deep. It was originally 160mm deep as well, but that was before I measured the black plastic surrounds, two of those add an extra 2.9mm. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
JJZolx wrote: Reading back through a just few of John's and Clive's posts, it looks like they're not exactly on the same page with regard to the panels. Clive mentioned two distributors. Are we talking commercial distributors or kitchen table operations? This early in the project (beta boards haven't even been produced yet) I don't see how there can have been any type of commitment to distributors where the design or origin of the end panels would make any difference. If the panels (or just the rear panel) are produced from circuit board material, do they still need to be machined? Circuit boards are produced in all kinds of shapes, containing any manner of holes and cutouts. Can they be produced with the necessary design by the board house rather than requiring machining? If they do need to be machined, then why use a circuit board in the first place? Only for the silk screening? If the front panels need to be silk screened anyway, could't both panels be printed at the same time for a nominal additional cost? What exactly will be sold/distributed by the project? Obviously, the CSP2 board. And, I take it, the panels. What about the body of the case itself? Any other parts? -Edit:- Ok, I just found a post by John. Apparently only the CSP2 board and and an end panel will be distributed and the end users will be tasked with buying the cases themselves. There won't be a front panel produced. I guess it makes a little more sense now. Knock out a circuit board with some printing on it, have someone cut out the necessary holes, drop it in the box. The CSP1 board, the low quantity beta version is going to be assembled by the users. My original take on that was to do the back panel as a PC board since they can route out holes and put silk screen on it and I have the tools to do a PC board design. I don't think CSP2, the general release one which can come fully assembled was designed to be done that way. Current price for 25 back panels with the routing and silk screen comes out to $8 per board and $4.85 if we do 50. If we can get a nicer looking aluminum panel with letering for less I don't think that would be a problem. If not, then we can do it with the PC board, but I still would like the help measuring the board and coming up with the layout of the holes and lettering. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
JRatron wrote: I believe that because at this stage of the project, people are expected to supply their own wandboard and case, the kit will basically be a CSP1 DAC board, custom end plate(s) for the case and any other little bits that are needed to fit it together nicely. So the end plates will likely need making from scratch, although I will just double check that they're not available really cheap as spares from Hammond, just in case. The rear end plates will need the holes for the various plugs making, plus printing. The screw holes in the standard end plates are countersunk to take countersunk screws. Because everything else will be a straight cut, it may possibly be cheaper to remove an extra manufacturing process and use pan-head or socket cap screws instead. John, do you have an idea of what you expect batch sizes to be? I'll work out pricing for 100, 500 and 1,000 as a starting point We need to decide whether we will be using those black plastic front and back surrounds, if we don't use them I have to make the board 1/8 shorter. I personally rather like them. and they cover up the edge of the panel, which may or may not be an issue depending on the panel. CSP1 is the beta run and we were planning on 25 units. CSP2 is going to be the general distribution version which was sort of being planned for 400 units. Thanks for working on this. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
JJZolx wrote: John, would it be possible to add holes to the carrier board suitable for mounting it on standoffs in a case? Thanks. There is no way to add holes near the back of the board, every square mm is packed with connectors. Putting holes in the front is easy and part way back is not too bad, but near the back, forget it. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
There have been several people who have mentioned they would be willing to help with designing a back panel for CSP1. I'm ready for that now (I should have done it a several months ago!). I will build a couple of PC boards that are back panel mock-ups they just contain all the connectors on the back. The board will be full width but only a couple inches deep. I would like to send one of these to someone who can measure the connectors and come up with a CAD file for the openings needed for these connectors on the back panel. If you have the contacts to find a good manufacturing process and manufacturer for the back panel that would be great as well. This person will probably have to buy one of the cases we are going to be using to get the size and location of the board relative to the back panel. It is probably going to be. Designing good looking lettering for the back will also be a big help. Basically I want to hand over the task of designing and getting ready for manufacturing of the back panel to someone else. It will probably come out much better than if I do it! Please respond if you are interested in doing this. If one person wants to do the cad file design and someone else wants to do the manufacturing method and manufacturer selection, that is fine as well. I should have the boards done in about two and a half weeks. Thanks, John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
JRatron wrote: I'm still happy to sort this out John and don't have a problem with anything there :) Just realised I'm not sure where in the world this project is based. I'm in the UK if that makes any difference? cheers, James Thanks James, I'm in California (USA), Clive and Adrian are in UK. The board house I use is in Canada. So things will be bouncing around a bit. While we are waiting for the boards I'd like to discuss material and manufacturing options. The case comes with front and back panels that are about 1/16 thick aluminum with beveled holes in the corners. We can do the same thing, or plastic (as long as there is a conductive layer in there somewhere). It needs to be fairly strong, there will be fair amount of force on the panel when people are inserting and pulling out plugs. The size is about 6.5 x 2. We need to talk about color, the case comes in multiple options, natural aluminum, black and blue. The end panels come in the same colors, they can be mixed and matched. If we do our own front and back panels then we don't care about the color of the panels that come with the case. I don't think anybody had decided on what color to use for the case. For CSP1 at least each user is buying their own case, so they are free to choose any case color they wish. I wonder if it is possible to make panels that will look good with all three colors? John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
bakker_be wrote: Hi there, how could this (http://www.minidsp.com/products/dirac-series) be integrated into the signal chain without losing the benefits of John's DAC? This is an issue I am very interested in. Dirac is a very special room correction suite, I think it is quite a bit better than the others and would very much like to get it into the CSOS flow. Dirac is a software package (NOT free) which comprises two pieces, the analysis part and the runtime part. The analysis takes the measurements and figures out what the filter should look like, and the runtime implements the filter in real time in your playback chain. Theoretically these two could be on different OS's and machines. So you analyze the room with your laptop and put the runtime on the wandboard. The dirac company has said that the runtime has been optimized to not use very much processing horsepower so it should run on a wandboard. They do have linux versions available which run on ARM processors. So the fun part is how this runtime gets integrated into the flow. Does it get somehow attached to sqeezelite, or is it a plugin for LMS etc. The off the shelf linux version creates a virtual ALSA device for your application to send samples to, and it talks to the actual ALSA hardware output device. This could easily be implemented in current CSOS flow. There may be a problem though, we are using squeezelite to implement a really good upsampling filter, if we keep this in place dirac would then be given a 352.8 or 384 stream and I'm pretty sure that is not going to work. I would prefer that dirac gets plugged in before the upsampling and I'm not sure how to do that. I need to get some discussions going with the developers to find out what they do about sample rates etc. If they can do the upsampling with a custom upsampling filter that would make things much easier. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
bnadon wrote: Hi to the Community Squeeze team; thank you so much for what you are doing for the SqueezeBox community! I definitely realize that you cannot operate the same way as a commercial project would, but since I have started tracking your project with great interest several months ago, I must have wondered a thousand times where I could find the current project status and ETA for being able to order the CSP2. What would be the best location for tracking this, if any? I would think many people must be eager to track the same. Also as a side question - in your current tests, how well does the CSP synchronize with Logitech Squeezebox players? Thanks so much again!!! Ben Hi Ben, CSP does not physically exist yet. I have built a test board called the SWAMP05 board, we are waiting for a software driver to be up and running on the SWAMP before making any CSP1 boards. The design for CSP1 is done, but I don't want to spend any money getting some built until I know for sure whether the software will work with the current configuration. I do not want to be in the situation where we get some boards built and then find out I need an extra inverter or some such. The driver generates the signals that go to the DAC chips, so without it the board is just another wandboard. We can't just use an existing audio driver for two reasons: the existing drivers use CODEC master mode, the DAC chips we are using are CODEC slave mode, and we need to run the internal audio clock off the ultra low jitter clock on the board. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
BNAL wrote: John, Thanks for the quick reply. I also like the idea of being able to adjust the filter parameters on the Wandboad. Will there filtering options in the software? Again I can't wait. Yes, the webgui lets you input upsampling parameters, although it is a bit, how shall I say this, user unfriendly. For example the parameters I'm using right now are: m:::28:94:120:38 It's certainly compact, but not exactly obvious what it means. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
BNAL wrote: This is what I have been looking for an audiophile Squeezebox solution. From what I have gathered so far I would need to source the Wandboard, power supply, and case myself and I would purchase the CSP2 and case ends from the Community Squeeze. Is that correct and is the case listed on the Community Squeeze site the case that will be used? Also, has the CSP1 been tested yet? If so what were the results? Sorry for all the questions, but this is exciting news to me. It is planned that CSP2 will be available as both an out of the box ready to go unit, OR as the carrier board and back panel. With the latter you buy your own wandboard and case, swap the module from the wandboard to the CSP2 board and put it in the case. It's just screws, no soldering or anything else. If you are willing to do the this assembly yourself you can save a few bucks off of the fully packaged version. You also have a wider choice of case colors if you buy the case yourself. There are three colors available: natural aluminum, black and blue. At this point we haven't decided which will be used for the ready out of the box unit. The custom end panels we are going to be providing will just be in one color. The community is of course free to make whatever front panels, back panels, different cases they want. CSP1 is just available as the carrier board and the back panel. Only a small number will be made. CSP1 has not been released yet, we are waiting for some software developments before releasing it. I want to make absolutely sure everything works with the software before making a bunch. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] I2S LVDS on wanboard ?
m.rbiza...@mailoo.org wrote: Hello, Some DAC manufacturer or diy seller use I2S input in their dac via LVDS transmitter/receiver. For example audio-gd use them in their high end dac with RJ45 cable and twisted pair audio sell a similar module call Teleporter. Psaudio have also propose free standard over hdmi cable (since some diy board exist with this standard) : http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/164366-i2s-standards-ps-audio-2.html As this king of connexion seems more audiophile than spdif/tosling or usb and also very easy to integrate to existing dac, could it be possible to make it work on the wandboard and Community Squeeze Operating System ? I red in previous post that a member of the community, JackOfAll, develop an i2s driver, could it work with this standard ? Thank you The I2S coming out of the Wandboard is not LVDS, it is standard CMOS level. An adapter would have to be built to take the I2S signals and run them through LVDS transmitters. Whether it is better than another transport mechanism depends entirely on the DAC implementation. A really good asynchronous USB will beat the LVDS I2S. There is an interesting possibility with the CSP hardware, it has an I2S output and clock input that will work directly with the driver for the CSP hardware, no software change required. You could build a DAC that has an ultra low jitter local clock, feed the clock to CSP, take the I2S out to the DAC and reclock with the local clock in the DAC. You can use LVDS or standard CMOS for the interface depending on how far the DAC is from the CSP. If you put both in the same box so the boards are a couple inches apart you probably don't need LVDS. If they are in separate boxes a foot or so apart then LVDS is a good choice. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=100961 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Question for the Wandboard user...
zoula wrote: Pascal, No the Najda don't allow for a USB connection. The USB is only intended for programming. The inputs are SPDIF Toslink analog and I2S. Using the I2S inputs give me the advantage that I could place a Wandboard centimeters from the input and reduce all conversion too the minimum. Kasey, Is there a way to get the signal from the GPIOs with a different Kernel??? The Wandboard has I2S signals on its IO connectors. Right now there is no driver that is actually putting anything on those signals. JackOfAll is working on an I2S driver for use with our CSP1 hardware, it MAY be possible to use that with those I2S outs. There is an issue with that, the driver he is writing is syncing to an external clock, the Najda does not work that way, it doesn't provide a master clock. The driver would have to be modified to work with an internal clock source. Another option is to start with the existing driver for the codec on the Wandboard, unfortunately it runs in slave mode with the codec providing the timing signals. It could be rewritten to have the Wandboard provide the timing. I'ts not that the wandboard can't do it, it's just that nobody has actually done it yet. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=100926 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
marflao wrote: Thanks for that, John. Indeed, I have a NAS in place although it's not the most powerful. Therefore I'll keep your remark regarding running LMS on the CSP definitely in mind. I still have another question regarding the connection between CSP and DAC. Would there be a problem to use a spdif cable with BNC on one end (CSP) and RCA on the other (DAC)? And what would be the highest bitrates if I would use SPDIF instead of USB? You can certainly use a BNC to RCA cable (Blue Jeans is one of the few places that do such a cable correctly), it WILL have an impedance mismatch because of the RCA, but if RCA is all your DAC has then that is what you have to do. I'm not sure what the maximum data rate is for the S/PDIF coax output is. That will depend on the driver and I have not looked closely enough at it to find that out. Maybe JackOfAll knows that one. I'm pretty sure people have had it up to 192, but I'm not sure if it will go up to 384. The USB out definitely goes up to 384. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
marflao wrote: I hope you don´t mind if I jump in here ;-) The CSP2 sounds very interesting and I guess I will get one too, once it will be available. I got one question for which I couldn´t find an answer on the Community Squeeze pages (or did I miss this ?!?!). In case this has already been asked (and answered) pls forgive me asking it again: what kind of formats will the CSP2 be able to play/handle (in my case all music will be stored on a Syno NAS)? Assuming the external DAC is capable of DXD DSD will this also be handled by the CSP2? I don´t want´to start a new DSD or not DSD debate here but I´m just curious what the WB/CSP2 will be capable of. Personally I haven´t listened to any DXD or DSD files yet and I´m not sure if I would hear the difference to a 24bit something song. But I might would give it a try to find out myself ;-) Thanks in advance for your feedback and looking forward to the final product ;-) The player software (squeezelite) running on the CSP processsor (wandboard module) supports a few types natively, these are the stream types that can be delivered from LMS to the player. LMS is in charge of converting a much larger array of file types to one of these stream types. LMS can be run on either an external computer or the CSP processor. If you have a NAS you have a choice of running LMS on the NAS or on the CSP. The CSP processor is powerful enough to run LMS better than many NAS boxes. When running LMS on the CSP it's perfectly happy pointing at a NAS on the network for the music files. It's theoretically possible to add a DSD DAC board to a CSP system, but I'm not sure it would fit in the same case. It would also have it's own analog outs. It's not going to happen any time soon, if ever. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
bernid wrote: Thanks for an explanation. If a system with two PCM1704 without the filter sounds better IÂ’m not going to apply DF1706 filter. On the site 'http://www.pavouk.org' (http://www.pavouk.org/hw/modulardac/en_pcm1704.html) I found an example of application 2xPCM1704 without DF1706. The author used five 74HCT164: the first one as 7 bit data delay and the next four as 32 bits left channel buffer. [image: http://www.pavouk.org/hw/modulardac/pcm1704_sch.png] Do you think it could be a good solution for replacing DF1706? Thanks, Bern I prefer to do it with a CPLD, just like the one JackOfAll pointed to. It makes things SO much easier, you find something wrong or you want to do something slightly different, just reprogram the CPLD. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
bernid wrote: Hi, I would like to return to the FCC audio connector topic. I keep thinking about using of an external DAC with two independent clock 22.xx and 24.xx. IÂ’m considering designing the muxer/switch and use SPI interface to drive DAC filter. 1. Can I use one of the schematics from 'this' (http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1202359) website. Which one will be better -1' Simple Implementation of a clock switch'- or -3 ' Glitch protection for unrelated clock sources'- ? 2. What chip(s) to use to make this muxer? 7400 series? (SN74LVC1G04, SN74LVC74, HC7408 and 74LVC1G02) 3. Where on the Carrier board is a FCC audio connector? If possible , please attach the part of the photo where this connector is located and where is pin 1. 4. As a DAC I'm going to use DF1706 and 2xPCM1704 . Do the SPI signals from pins :15 MC, 16 MOSI, 17 MISO would be able control DF1706 filter? In particular, whether it will be possible to control the oversampling ratio? For example, for streams with sampling rate upto 48kHz set oversampling 8x and for files above 48kHz set to 4x?. Thanks, Bern 1) There is no need to use any of those fancy clock schemes, a simple mux is all that is needed. 2) I use a 74LVC1G97 hooked up as a mux. 3) It is J17 on the left side of the board. I'll see If I can get a placement picture posted. I have a PDF, I'll see if I can post that. Pin 1 is on the right in this orientation. The cable comes out of the upper side of the connector. 4) the DF1706 doesn't sound nearly as good as the upsampling we are doing in software. I have done exactly what you are talking about with a very good discrete IV stage for the 1704s and what we are doing in CSP sounds better. But of course you are free to try anything you want, but it is going to have a hard time sounding as good. You might want to forget about the 1706 and feed the 1704s direct from the I2S (with a splitter of course) and let the software do the upsampling. Not only will it sound better but you don't have to program the DF1706. I think you are misunderstanding the SPI interface on this connector. The SPI pins of J17 are connected to the SPI pins of the DAC chips, NOT the processor. They are there to allow someone to program the DSP block in the DAC chips from an external system. If you want to get at an SPI port from the processor, that is on connector J11 which contains all the display interfaces. It is important to understand that J11 and J17 are on different power domains. J11 is on the digital domain which includes the processor and digital interfaces such as Ethernet and USB. J17 is on the audio domain which includes the DAC chips, low jitter clocks etc. Any interface between the two should be done with GMR isolators. Thus if you want to control the DF1706 from the processor you will need to get the SPI signals from J11 and run them through isolators to your DAC board. This also means you will need two power supplies so you can keep the domains separate. I hope this is clear, I'm a little out of it today. John S. +---+ |Filename: CSP1_place.pdf | |Download: http://forums.slimdevices.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=15532| +---+ JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
gstew wrote: John, Thanks for the response. Sounds like the CSP is likely the best direction for me, as I thought. On the separate supply question, it would be great to have that option... and I am not above hacking a board to make separate power inputs... did this to the ESI Juli@ card I use on my current computer music setup. BTW, it was my experience with powering this card separate from the remainder of the computer that had me build multiple separate supplies for the components in my computer audio setup, with good sonic effect. OTOH, I remember how you described the effort you are putting into the grounds and multiple regulators on the CSP and I suspect it will exhibit less improvement with separate supplies than many other mixed-realm setups. Finally, since no one else seems to have asked recently, are you getting to a point where the cost to buy a CSP (board only, already have the Wandboard and case) can be estimated? I see that the expected price of the Bottlehead DAC is pushing $1000... where might the CSP range? TIA! Greg Stewart Hacking the board to fully separate planes is going to be essentially impossible. It is a multi-layer board with the planes embedded in the stack, there is no way to get in there with a dremel tool to cut a plane without completely destroying the board. I really don't want to put jumper posts in to allow the sections to be separated for the few that want to do that. That significantly adds inductance for the normal case and I don't want to do that. The best bet is to just trust me that I have done a good job of isolation as is and not worry about it. (I know that can be tough for an audiophile) I did a rough estimate of board cost a few months ago, but I don't remember the results right now. I'll have to go look it up later. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
gstew wrote: John, Thanks for the status updates. Very exciting that this is getting closer to HW. John, I've been watching both the Community Squeezebox development and the DAC you're doing for Bottlehead and weighing which would be better for me. Since my main digital source is from a computer music player, Community Squeeze seems to be the best option. I remember you saying awhile back that the Wandboard/CSPx will require a good PS for the best SQ. Would it be a good bet to build up the 5v version of your choke-filtered design for that supply? Also, for us DIY'ers always trying for a little more, do you expect it will make any difference to separate the rails and use multiple supplies, say one for the Wandboard and another for the CSPx, especially with all the design tricks you are using? Also, will there be an option to select the appropriate settings in the SW (mainly the SoX resampling) or will they be the preset default, or will that be a separate configuration step when using a full CSPx setup? Besides the good power supply, I'm as prepared as I can be... got my Wandboard Quad loaded with the Community Squeeze OS F19 and the designated Hammond case waiting for a CSPx board! Again, thanks! And also thanks to Triode, JackofAll, and all others doing the SW side! Greg in Mississippi Hi Greg, the Bottlehead and CSP have the same DAC topology the differences are that the CSP is JUST a squeezebox player, the BH does USB and S/PDIF. So if you are a SB person, going with CSP gives you a more focused option. For the BH DAC the filter parameters are built in to the FPGA, you can't change them, for CSP the filter is done in software on the wandboard, you can change the parameters via a webGui any time you want. On the PS front the BH comes with a battery which gets the best out of it. The CSP has a jack, you can plug whatever you want into it. I had not thought about using separate supplies with the CSP. In order for it to work there will have to be some changes to the board layout and some way to select single or double supply. There is no way to do this with the boards as they are currently layed out. I will have to think about this one and see if there is any way to do this. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
JackOfAll wrote: I don't believe this is the case now. My understanding is that the dual is now (and has been for some time) shipping with the revised carrier board. (I did try and get a clarification from Wandboard, but never got a response, which is pretty typical. A distributor was kind enough to confirm the rev no of a dual carrier board, so unless you are buying one that has sat as stock on a shelf for half a year, you'll get the revised carrier board.) Hmm, I bought a new Dual from Mouser not too long ago and it had the bad optical. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
bobertuk wrote: Sorry, I should have explained a bit more... No intention to connect a DAC through USB - I have a co-ax/optical Lavry DA-10. It's purely for an external HDD connection. I have an Icy Dock 3.5inch HDD enclosure which has a USB 3 and eSATA connection and wish to be able to use it with Wandboad. I know USB 3 is USB 2 compatible but I think USB 2 is a bit slow for data transfer. I think I can rig up a connection using a SATA to eSATA cable but USB would be a cleaner solution. I suppose it's just because I have an HDD enclosure that's capable of higher data transfer speeds and would like to be able to use it :) Bob You definitely want the quad version, the optical S/PDIF on the dual is not implemented correctly. If disk transfer rate is really that critical you will be better off with a SATA to eSATA adapter and run your disk off that. I'm still not sure what your usage is that requires the maximum transfer rate the drives are capable of. Playing music, even 24/192 doesn't come close to using the USB2 rate. Is it just for copying files to the drive from some other drive over ethernet? Or are you going to be doing some form of processing on the Wandboard and need the speed for that? If it's transferring files over ethernet you are still running a 1Gb ethernet which is not all that much faster than USB2, so even if you go the eSATA route it will not be much faster. To get faster than that you will HAVE to run your drive directly into a computer with the fast drive you are copying from so you can take advantage of the faster USB3 or eSATA interface. You certainly COULD plug an eSATA drive and a USB drive into the Wandboard and copy that way, but you would almost certainly get better performance using a modern high speed computer instead. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
Mr. Bill wrote: John, Hi. Like many users, I've been following with great interest the CSOS project and was just wondering if there were any hardware updates you can provide, such as did the CSP1 boards go to the beta testers yet? If so, how has the feedback been? Thanks, Bill The CSP1 design is ready to go. I'm waiting on the software guys to get me a driver for the DAC chip. I'm not going to send the boards out to be manufactured until I have a working DAC on SWAMP05. This is to make sure we have things like clock phase, sample rate family etc worked out before we spend a lot of money getting boards made. Clive seems to be getting close to being able to do this. BTW I recently put together a board with the same DAC configuration as CSP1 is using, but with a USB input. I took this to a friend who has a very good system and we spent some time tweaking the upsampling paramters, the final results were really something special, it was actually better than anything else we had heard. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] PoE
The jack on the Touch is 5.5mm (outer) and 2.5mm (pin) dimension. The other size in common use is 5.5 x 2.1. If the plug you are trying to insert into the Touch has a 2.1mm inside dimension the 2.5mm pin of the Touch will not fit. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=100680 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] 8 TB Storage and more...
erland wrote: It's nice to hear that I'm not alone with this kind of experience, I started think that my experience with people recovering a RAID system and ending up in a scenario where the recovery takes too long or fails was a rare exception. I had a RAID-5 array for many years, using linux software RAID. That array lasted through 3 computers, 4 operating systems and two bad disks, but one day it went bad and would not recover no matter what I did. But I DID keep full backups (the last of which had just happened two days before) so I was able to completely recover everything. Even with the array messed up I could still get the data off the array, but it was not functioning like it should. (but that was unnecessary because of the backup). But this backing up to hard drives is still so much better than in the old days using tapes to do backup. I had two different tape systems and was diligent in making backups. But the two times I had a total disk meltdown and needed to do a restore the tapes would not read on the same drive that wrote them. A complete waste of time and money. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=100561 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] 8 TB Storage and more...
What I did was get an aluminum case (the one I bought is not made any more, but there are others) with a wind tunnel of drive mounts with a fan at both ends of the tunnel to keep drives cool. A medium type motherboard (no need for super graphics etc). I put vortexbox software on this and it became the server for the house. I left it on 24/7, the wind tunnel in the case kept the drives cool for very long life. It sat in an out of the way spot in the spare bedroom. It does make some noise, but really not very much. For backups you have some choices. The easiest is just build another system the same as the first and rsync over ethernet between them. This gives you a good local backup. Then do a rotating backup off the secondary on external drives stored offsite. Since you are essentially building your own NAS, you can put whatever hardware interfaces you want on it such as multiple USB3 ports, whatever. The backup server does not have to run 24/7, just enough to handle the rsync, which is probably not much once a full copy has been done. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=100561 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
SamS wrote: Is there an estimated timeline for availability to purchase a turn-key CSP1? A full turnkey system won't be available until CSP2, most likely second quarter of next year (2014). CSP1 is just a beta board for a small number of people to test. It will not be turnkey, the beta testers will have to buy the case and wandboard and do the final assembly themselves. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Grrr.. Just when you think it's all going so well.....
One BIG issue is that the machine LMS is running on and your SB2 both have the same IP address, this is very bad, there is something really wrong going on here, that should not happen. I can think of three possible reasons for this: 1) Your DHCP server is messed up 2) you have TWO DHCP servers on your network (maybe your PC is setup as a DHCP server?) 3) you have some devices using DHCP and some with fixed addresses, and ranges overlap I think a quick tutorial on DHCP is in order A device on the network needs an IP address, it can either have one programmed into the device, known as a static IP address, OR it can get one at boot time from some other device on the network. DHCP is the most popular method of network assigned addresses. The system consists of a DHCP server (usually built into the router) that contains a pool of addresses that it assigns to other devices. That pool is usually a continuous subset of addresses used on your LAN. For example in your system you are using 192.168.0.xxx, where xxx can be 1-254. The DHCP server is usually set for some portion of this, such as 2-200 or 100-254 etc. The DHCP server should never use the whole range so there are some numbers left for you to assign static IPs if you desire. When a device boots up it sends out a message on the LAN saying give me an address. The DHCP server creates a lease for this device, it is an address from the pool AND a length of time it is good for. (on home servers it is frequently 24 hours, but can be much shorter or longer) If the lease runs out the device can't talk to other devices. Before the lease runs out (usually 10 minutes before) the device tries to renegotiate the lease with the server. IF the server is working right and all devices are using DHCP you should never have two devices with the same address. IF you use static addresses it is your responsibility to make sure you don't give any two devices the same address AND that you make sure you assign addresses outside of the pool used by the DHCP server. As mentioned above this goes out the window if you have TWO DHCP servers on the LAN. When a device requests a lease, it just sends out the message and waits for a response, if there are two servers that have overlapping pools, it's very easy to get address conflicts, if both servers reply to the request the device uses one and not the other, the two servers don't communicate with each other, they both think they are the only ones on the LAN. Normally your only DHCP server is in your router so it's not a problem. BUT it is also possible to setup a PC as a DHCP server (it's something like network sharing, I don't remember the exact name). You might want to check and see if that is setup on your PC. Another possibility is having a modem that has a bultin DHCP server AND a separate router that has a DHCP server. Some DSL, cable modems etc actually contain routers and DHCP servers builtin, if you add a separate router after that, you can wind up with two DHCP servers without knowing it. If that is the case you need to turn off one of those DHCP servers. I know, probably way more info than you ever wanted to know! It might be a good idea to give us a list of all your networking equipment (modems, routers, switches, APs etc) and how they are connected, that will help us figure out what might be happening here. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=100436 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
bernid wrote: Hi, Will I be able to receive left-justyfied data format from the carrier? Regards, bernid The format of the data is determined by the ALSA driver, the one provided will just produce I2S, the hardware WILL produce left justified, but it will take a change to the driver to setup the hardware appropriately. I don't think that is going to happen any time soon. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Grrr.. Just when you think it's all going so well.....
When stuff like this happens to me about 80% of the time it is DHCP that is causing the problem. A player's lease runs out and the DHCP server doesn't renew the lease for some reason, so the player can't get any data, even though the actual network connection is still there. I have had three routers that have problems with this, the DHCP server works fine after it is booted up, but over time it gets slower and slower and eventually it takes so long to respond to the request for a new lease that the player times out waiting for it. In my system what made it work was every month shut the entire system down. Turn on the router, give it ten minutes to make sure it was up and nice and stable, then one by one turn on each device on the network (not just SB players, EVERYTHING on the network, computers printers, SB etc). This would usually keep it going well for the rest of the month. If you turn them all on at once it can overload the pitiful DHCP server. I finally gave up and bought a small fanless low power computer and put pfSense software on it, which turns it into a fantastically good router, no more network problems! I know we shouldn't have to deal with all the stupid network issues, but inexpensive residential network products are not always highly robust. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=100436 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
No, that is not correct. Pin 15 has nothing to do with the audio clocks, it is the clock for the SPI interface used to program the DAC chips. That DAC chips have a lot of capabilities that we normally don't use, so I put the programming interface to those functions on this connector, they have nothing to do with the I2S stream. On YOUR board your will have the two clocks (22.xxx, 24.xxx) you will do the clock muxing on your board. The select for that mux comes from pin 13 on the carrier board. The output of the mux on your board goes into pin 3. The I2S signals (BCK, LRCLK, SDATA) come from the carrier board to your board. You can then reclock (if you so desire) using the output of your clock mux. There is no master clock coming OUT of the carrier board, you feed YOUR master clock into the carrier board to synchronize it to your clock. I hope that makes sense. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
bernid wrote: Hi, Could you please provide pin-outs of the 24pin 0.5mm FFC audio connector? Will it be possible to feed the board with two master-clocks signals (e.g 22.5792 and 24.576Mhz)? Is the software could automatically select appropriate clock signals 22.5792 and 24.576Mhz to the appropriate sample rate in the stream (multiples of 44.1/48 kHz)? I'm considering the carrier board with external DAC (i2S) and two external clocks in one box. Regards, The carrier just has one clock input, but there is a clock select output, you get to do the clock muxing. There is a carrier input that selects the external or internal clock. It has a pull up on the carrier, so if left floating the internal clock is selected.Pull it down to select the external clock. 1 GND 2 GND 3 External clock 4 GND 5 BCK 6 GND 7 LRCLK 8 GND 9 SDATA 10 GND 11 SPDIF 12 GND 13 External clock select 14 GND 15 MC 16 MOSI 17 MISO 18 MS_XLR+ 19 MS_XLR- 20 MS_RCA 21 SOFTWARE_MODE 22 GND 23 CLOCK_FAMILY 0=22.5792 1=24.576 24 GND Pins 15-21 are an SPI interface to program the DAC chips, If not using leave floating. That should be it. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Where's the servers for duffers wiki to be found?
For my main server I'm running vortexbox on a fitpc2, which is a very tiny, fanless atom based computer about the size of your hand, they use a whopping 5 watts, this just stays on all the time. You can put a standard 2.5 laptop drive inside, if you can fit your library on one 2.5 drive you don't need an external drive. The one problem is that it does not have an optical drive (it's smaller than a CD!), I have to use an external USB optical drive to load the software and do ripps. I just plug that in when I need it. If you have terabytes of songs the official vortexbox appliance is probably a better solution. The fitpc2 is completely silent and really tiny, it is also very rugged, it is designed as an industrial computer, so should last a long time. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=100416 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
Currently the hardware for CSP1 has three DACs, one feeds the RCAs, one XLR+ and one XLR-. The same data gets sent to the RCA and XLR+ DACs, there is a hardware inversion on the way to the XLR- DAC. There is no provision for a user selectable inversion on the DATA stream. It COULD be done, but the board is already designed. Then there is how the user makes the selection. You can put a switch on the box itself. Or it can come from software. If it's software we have to take another signal off the processor into the carrier board. It certainly can be done, but it's again a change to the current implementation. Then the software has to be written to flip that output pin of the processor. It would probably be easier to implement it in software. But that is up to Triode and JackOfAll. The off the shelf approach is to make an adapter to take single ended signals off the XLRs, selects either the + or - outputs. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
JJZolx wrote: Just out of curiosity, and nothing to do with the absolute phase question... Why is it necessary (or desirable?) to use three DACs? Why wouldn't all the analog outs be fed by just one DAC? The DAC chips I am using are designed to drive outputs directly without any output stage. So adding analog buffers or inversion stages not only significantly increase the cost they actually degrade the sound. It was cheaper and easier to just have one DAC per output. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
gorman wrote: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/697708033/hdmipi-affordable-9-high-def-screen-for-the-raspbe Please tell me this would be compatible. :) It should work. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
badboygolf16v wrote: Apologies if this has been covered earlier in the thread, I've done a quick search and not turned up anything. I have my Squeeze Server library on a 2.5 USB external 2TB HDD formatted in NTFS. Could I plug this into a Wandboard Quad and run Squeeze Server? Any configuration hoops to jump through? Thanks As JackOfAll mentioned most USB external drives will work off the Wandboard USB port, just make sure you are powering the Wandboard with a power supply that can handle the current requirements of both the Wandboard and the drive. As he mentioned that is probably going to be in the 2.5A - 3A range. If the USB drive has its own power supply then it is not a problem at all. The wandboard handles NTFS quite nicely. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
JJZolx wrote: Sorry, I was talking about the stock carrier board. I realize that this one needs its own case, even if only to deal with the connector arrangement. How will this one be oriented in its case? Will it put the CPU board on top? I'm still not quite sure what you are referring to. The wand cpu modules are designed so the CPU is always facing away from the carrier board. The Wandboard plastic case is designed so the carrier fits with the module facing up. The Swamp05 was never designed to be used in any form of case, it is just a development board designed to sit on the bench to test out drivers and such. There have been two made and that is all there will ever be. The CSP1 board is designed so the module is on the top, thus the CPU and any heatsinks are facing up. CSP1 is designed to be used with a specific Hammond aluminum case. I hope that answers the question. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Rebuffering nightmare
bb1959 wrote: I download only 24/96. Would upgrading my NAS be the way to go? I really hate to do that but if it's the only solution... BTW, I've had the NAS for 4 or so years and I've been downloading 24/96 flac for at least several years and never had the dropout problem until recently. One thing to check in the LMS settings is the file type settings, flac file can either be sent as flac files and the Touch does the decoding, or LMS can do the decoding and send PCM to the touch. Try it both ways and see which works better. I'm on vacation right now so I don't have an LMS handy to tell you exactly what the settings are, but there are others here that can help with that if you can't figure it out on your own. One thing we do know is that many of the online sources compress their files with level 8, the highest compression ratio, which takes more horsepower to decode. You might want to try a program that takes the flac file and re-compress it with a lower level (say 1) and see if that makes any difference. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=100272 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] More squeezebox hardware alternatives: MK808, Influence of the DAC
xvlun wrote: i was not sure, which term to use for usb dac, as it is not doing any digital analog converting when used with spdif output ;). So I went with he external sound card. thanks A DAC can have S/PDIF input (coax or optical) or USB, or both inputs. It is still a DAC, converting the digital data from the Touch into analog for the stereo system. BTW with the EDO applet a Touch can work with many USB DACs (some USB DACs use propriatary drivers, they will not work with the Touch). John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=100231 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
volpone wrote: Thank's Julf and Cliveb My goal is to get, as soon as possible, a SB Touch alternative or replacement for my HIFI digital setup and the most important point is audio quality associated with Rega external DAC (or other good external audiophile DAC) . So if CSP carrier and associated software could act as an audiophile grade digital transport i will get one. Also it would be great to have a touch screen UI (like SB Touch) but if it is not possible it is not so crucial for me. Regards Yes the CSP boards will have a builtin DAC, I have worked very hard to make this DAC to be one of the best sounding DACs period. You will have to spend many times the price to get an external DAC that will sound this good. If you already have a very good USB input DAC you can hook it up right now to a Wandboard. The wandboard includes an HDMI out which can be connected to any HDMI input screen. CSOS already includes a port of most of the menu system of the Touch, although it has been designed for input via keyboard or IR remote (via FLIRC) rather than touchscreen. Future Electronics is also selling a touch screen that will plug into the wandboard, the very latest testing version of CSOS includes drivers for this. I'm not sure if the touchscreen input is supported at this point. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
volpone wrote: Thank you John, When available i would be interested using the system (probably WanBoard Quad) with an external DAC setup (Rega DAC) linked via Coaxial SPDIF. Could you confirm that both hardware and software are already, or will be, designed for this type of setup with no needs for an additional carrier board ? Regards. Volpone The wandboard carrier boards do not contain coax SPDIF, just TOSLINK SPDIF. Which was nit done correctly on the board that shipped with the duals. They fixed the board and that is what ships with the quad. The CSP carrier boards have both coax and TOSLINK SPDIF interfaces. The general release boards (CSP2 and up) will be available either as just a carrier board, or as a fully assembled plug and play configuration. If you have already bought a wandboard you can get a CSP2 carrier board only and move your existing CPU module to the CSP carrier board. You will also need to buy a case and do the final assembly yourself. (it's 8 screws) The beta CSP1 board will only be available as a carrier board. The software supports TOSLINK on both the wandboard and CSP boards, and coax on the CSP boards, BUT the outputs on the CSP boards will be much better. The outputs are ground isolated and reclocked with an ultra low jitter clock. The coax output is also properly impedance matched to 75 ohms with a true 75 ohm output jack. Ultra low noise regulators are used for the outputs. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
gorman wrote: Is there anywhere a mantained post with updated information on the state of things? While I browse the forums I see *a lot* of posts, info, discussions that make me hopeful replacements are coming. But it's becoming (it's already become actually) kind of impossibile to understand where everything's at. :) If you mean a single post with all the information on the project, such a thing does not exist. The FAQ on the communitysqueeze.org site gives a lot of information on the project. The status of the software: an image for the Wandboard dual and quad exists which can be used with an external DAC, USB, HDMI or TOSLINK. The TOSLINK hardware on the dual wandboard is incorrect and will not work in many situations. The TOSLINK on the quad board has been corrected. Te latest released image is available on the communitysqueeze.org site. The thread about the F19 R1 release in the linux forum contains pointers to the very latest greatest testing versions of the software. On the hardware side the CSP1 carrier board is designed but I am on vacation right now so no new work is happening until I get back. (in about 3 weeks) We are waiting for some custom parts to arrive before having a few made. Hopefully they will be in when I get back. We are working towards having beta boards out before the end of the year. The CSP2 version will be the general release version of the board, it hopefully will be the same as the CSP1 or only small bug fixes found in beta testing. The FAQ contains a lot of information about what this board will contain. The current line up of interfaces is: back panel: 2 RCA jacks for audio, 2 XLR jacks for audio, 3.5mm stereo jack for headphone, 75ohm BNC jack for coaxial SPDIF, full size TOSLINK for optical SPDIF, HDMI jack, two full size type A host USB jacks, two micro type A host USB jacks, one micro OTG USB jack, one gigbit ethernet jack, one 5.5x2.1mm barrel jack for power one micro USB jack just for power (wired as charging jack) one SMA jack for wifi antenna. On the board but not on the back panel, designed to be used by DIYers that want to do something different: standard SATA connector (only active if using a quad wandmodule) 4pin Molex power connector with just 5V, 3 micro type A host USB jacks, 24pin 0.5mm FFC connector with audio interfaces, I2S, clock out, clock in, clock family select, internal/external clock select, 50 pin 0.5mm FFC connector with display signals: parallel interface, LVDS and SPI The philosophy is that other interfaces (such as IR remote, trigger output etc will be done using USB, which is why there are so many USB jacks on the board. That is the current status. If you have any more questions, just ask. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Wandboard
atrocity wrote: Erland, I know the Wandboard and CommunitySqueeze are not your projects, I'm just choosing your post to hang my two questions on. :) 1. Has anyone tried a Wandboard + HDMI setup with DTS and/or AC-3? I'm curious if it's as bit-perfect as a Touch/SB3 and can be used with my surround library. 2. Since the Wandboard can run its own server and has HDMI output, is there any chance that in the future it will be possible to use it to play multichannel FLAC? That's literally the only feature I've ever missed in a Squeezebox. #1 does work, I've tried it with DTS, as usual just make sure the volume is at 100%, no upsampling, no replay gain, no fade in etc. #2, is probably never going to happen directly. The entire SB infrastructure was designed around two channel, anything else is pretty much going to take a complete re-write, which is pretty unlikely. It COULD be done in a similar way to DTS over 2 channel, but with lossles codecs. LMS works fine with up to 384K samples per second. It should be possible to convert one of he lossless multichannel formats into 2 channel and somehow get that onto HDMI where it can be decoded by whatever is normally used for that format. I don't know of anybody actually DOING that, but it is technically possible. I don't even know if it is legal without spending gazillions of dollars on a license for the format rights. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=99926 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] DSD playback via Logitechmediaserver using Squeezebox Touch or Wandboard
audiomuze wrote: Thanks for the clarification John. Technically speaking, is there any difference between the audio bitstream the DAC sees when presented with a DSD stream supplied via DoP vs that supplied via ASIO (I presume this is what JRiver uses)? My DAC is capable of playing both and sees both as DSD? The eventual audio data delivered to the DAC is the same with both formats. The formats themselves are very different. The DoP version takes up slightly more bandwidth since it sends out a special sequence of data that is extremely unlikely to happen in real life music. The Dac starts reading the PCM stream and if it sees this pattern happen a certain number of times in a row, it will then start interpreting the data as DSD. This sequence gets sent periodically so that takes up a little extra bandwidth. The ASIO is a dedicated DSD format so it doesn't need the extra sequence of data to determine if the data is DSD or PCM. BTW there are at least two different versions of the ASIO format in use today. The spec was extremely poorly defined so different hardware vendors and software vendors have interpreted it differently, so you have some ASIO drivers not working with some DACs that are supposed to support the ASIO format. This caused Jriver a lot of grief, they did their software to a specific DAC, then others came along which supported a slightly different format. That had to work long and hard to make their products support both types. Not all software vendors have done that. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=99958 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] DSD playback via Logitechmediaserver using Squeezebox Touch or Wandboard
Hi, I think it's important to get some terminology straight here, there is some conflict of terminology in this DSD stuff that is confusing a lot of people. There are currently two ways of playing back DSD information to a DAC that actually plays the DSD data, one is called DoP (DSD Over Pcm) which is what is being talked about here, and the other is based on ASIO. The ASIO interfaced is sometimes called Native DSD to distinguish it from DoP, so I recommend that anyone talking about DSD over computers to DACs explicitly mention either DoP or ASIO to avoid confusion. This thread mentions native DSD and not DoP, when in fact it is talking about DoP, this could be very confusing to some people. It's important to make the distinction because some DACs support one or the other format, only a DAC which supports DoP will work with this scheme on the SB line. There are several player programs which support the ASIO format (which they call native DSD) which is very different than DoP. And yes DoP works very well with the SB infrastructure, just make sure you get a DAC that supports DoP. Unfortunately I have seen several DACs which say they support native DSD, with no mention of DoP, but what they actually support is DoP. And other that say they support native DSD and what they support is the ASIO format. There are a few that support both. So if you want to use this scheme with the SB universe make sure you contact your DAC maker and make sure it supports DoP. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=99958 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Squeezebox is (not) dead... One year later.
Ikabob wrote: I totally agree with you. A new Touch and Boom is definitely needed. I love my Squeezebox ecosystem and would like to recommend it to my friends, but there is no longer any SB device that I can recommend. A UE Radio that is reset to Squeezebox software is nice, but not for a complete stereo SB system. I really think that Logitech is missing the boat on this. The UE could readily be used by those who would like the simplicity of a basic listening system. The downgraded SB device could be available for the sophisticated audiophile who is willing to accept the learning curve to get the complex versatile functionality of the Squeezebox products. A new Touch and new Boom would be very nice. Any chance? We ARE working on it! See the Community Squeeze project (www.communitysqueeze.org). We hope to have our first player in beta test this year. The software can already be used with a Wandboard if you wish to hook up to a USB DAC or HDMI. Our first player is going to be a headless receiver type unit so we can get something out there as soon as possible. Other incarnations will be coming out later. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=99919 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] What should replace my Squeezebox system?
If you really need to run RAID, go with software RAID in linux. It has been around for a long time, and will continue to be around for a long time and is the same in all versions of linux. If you try and use some form of hardware RAID you are stuck with that implementation, if the motherboard dies and you get a new one, it must have EXACTLY the same hardware RAID otherwise your array is down the tubes. I had a RAID5 array with linux software RAID for many years, it worked perfectly with three different motherboards and 5 different versions of linux. BTW he reason I had a RAID array was so that a bunch of disks could be combined into one volume. Years ago my local computer store had a screaming good deal on 256G drives so I bought a whole bunch and set them up as RAID for a lot less than a single large disk would have cost. That array lasted for a long time until I finally decided to go with a single large drive instead of RAID. The drives are so cheap now I just manually do a clone onto a rotation of other equivalent drives, if there is ever a problem it is just swap the drive. I personally would go with Vortexbox, it is super simple to setup and can host pictures, videos etc as well as LMS. I'm actually using a FitPC2 (Atom based, tiny little box) with VB as my main server, it works great even though it is an atom system, and only takes 5 watts! If you are doing more, particularly video stuff, a faster board would probably be useful. As to VB or a regular linux distribution, VB is a fairly modern Fedora distro with LMS and various other servers pre installed. It is specifically designed as a headless server, all administration is done through a web page interface. Even if your hardware has a monitor it won't use it since it doesn't start X. Since it is at heart a Fedora distro you can easily add other packages that don't come with it using the standard package management tools. The advantage is that it comes outof the box setup as a headless server for pretty much anything you might want. The downside is you don't get a GUI screen. If you WANT to use that specific computer to control music playing with wizzy GUI interfaces you can't. You can't play video games on it, it is purely a server. But it is probably the easiest server out there to get up and running. I have probably done 30 different linux installations with many different versions, so I'm fairly up on linux, but I would still go with VB for a server, it just does that task so well and is so easy to setup and maintain. BTW you CAN setup RAID on VB, but it's not part of it's builtin web page administration system. You have to remotely login to a shell and run a few commands and then the array looks just like a normal disk that all the rest of the software is happy to work with. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=99871 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
robtwickenham wrote: John, The whole manufacturing exercise is pretty simple and rapid- a couple of weeks from start of manufacture to completion. Depending on where you are with release of the generation 1 board, I think that it is entirely feasible to take a stab at offering something, if only to serve as another facet of the design up for discussion and review. The sticking points are actually nailing down the functionality (whether to include a LED, switch, logo etc), and then integrating everything into a coherent piece of design. This is probably the most contentious aspect, as everyone inevitably wanting to harmonize the appearance and style of the box with the contents of their own hi-fi rack. We use computer modeling and manufacture extensively, so creating and modifying proposals for potential fascias is straightforward, followed by “pressing the button” to create prototype-volume components. The EMF shielding aspect would require some guidance from you, or others. Layman's suggestions could include insertion of a steel or copper plate into the moulding or mounting it on the rear face, spraying a conductive paint on the rear surface, right through to including a high steel or aluminium content in the resin moulding. With regard to the switch, do you have any immediate thoughts about capacative touch? If these ramblings are of interest to the project, I have the capacity to assist. Robert Hi Robert, thanks for your willingness to help on this. As far as the shielding goes I have no personal knowlege as to what is easy to do (and inexpensive) from a manufacturing perspective. There needs to be something there. The circuitry inside the box is running at high speeds which will generate RF fields, a plastic only cover is not going to cut it. Can your process handle the backpanel cutouts and labeling? As far as a capacitance switch is concerned it is an interesting concept, but it is not going to happen for CSP1. Right now there are no electrical connections between the board and the end panels, this makes for very simple assembly, slide the board in and screw on the end panels. All the outside world connections are on the board and just stick through cutouts in the back panel. To do a switch on the front panel we need some form of indicator on the front as well, it gets very frustrating to users when you push a button and you have no idea if anything happened. In order to do the switch and indicator there has to be some form of connection between the front panel and the board, this has to get worked out, there are a lot of options and tradeoffs here. None of that is going to happen before CSP1. In order to do the capacitive switch we would have to work out the connection mechanism, build the panel with the sensor and the interconnect to the board and a test board to get it all worked out right. The capacitive touch systems are fairly sensitive to stray capacitances around the sensor and wiring to the controller chip. We would have to build it and make sure it works, it might take some tweaking of cap values. So actually doing the switch is not going to happen for CSP1, BUT just a straight panel with Logo etc, prefereably both front and back is doable for CSP1. I would appreciate some help with that since making things visually appealing is not my forte. For an example of the connectors on the back panel there was a post in this thread quite a while ago of a 3D rendering of the back of the board. Things have changed since then, but that gives an idea of what it will look like. Thanks, John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
robtwickenham wrote: As someone who has recently come across this forum, I have been devouring the development of Community Squeeze with fascination. This could be a way of abandoning my over fussy and expensive Naim streaming set-up and get back to what is important to me - the recorded music. With regard to the power button question, my company recently prototyped a small run of fascias to customise a Metcase standard case for a client, to add value to his product, using a custom made cast cast polyurethane panels. This is very economical and straight forward to do on a run of 10 - 30 units, and requires no serious investment in tooling. Incorporated into the fascia were two indicator surrounds, a rotary control (not applicable in the Squeeze application) and a capacitive touch panel, triggering a solid state relay. For the touch panel, we had the company logo photo etched into nickel silver sheet, which had the double bonus of becoming a discrete switch whilst branding the product. Again, this is a simple, economical process. I don't know whether capacitive touch would be appropriate for the switching, but thought that I would throw it into the hat. I could probably rustle up some pictures of the end result, or similar, if interested. Hi Rob, expertise in areas like this wouold be great. There is not enough time for the beta product to add stuff like this, but we definitely want to look into this for the final product. If you go to http://www.communitysqueeze.org you can see the logo for the project. There are higher res versions of that available. I think JackOfAll here in this forum is the keeper of the logo files. The case we are using is a standard Hammond aluminum extrusion which has simple front and back plates. We would like them to be metalic in some form for shielding purposes. (plastic with metal coating on the inside is fine). We will need both a nice looking front panel and a back panel with cutouts for all the connectors, and labeling for each connector. For our beta units I was just going to have this done as PC boards because its fairly cheap and easy to have done and we are already having boards made. For the production run we can go with much nicer looking end panels, but that is out of my area of expertise. So if someone else wants to help with that, GREAT. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
OK I think I get it, you want an external button to initiate a safe shutdown so you can pull the plug when not in use. The signal does exist on the module but the wand carrier doesn't use it. There is a button on the wandboard but it is the reset which starts a boot, not a shutdown. The pwr-butn signal is brought out to a test point on the wandboard, but I have no idea where it is on the board. It would be interesting to hook a button up to that test point and see what happens when pushed. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
A while back someone mentioned a power button on the front panel. Technically there is a signal on the module which is the PWR_BUTN, which does exactly what has been requested, but it is not used on the wand carrier board so nobody has been able to test it to see if it really does the right thing. Part of what this does is create an interrupt which is supposed to initiate a nice shutdown, I have no idea if CSOS has the right hooks to handle that properly. When in the shutdown state pushing the button again initiates a boot. I have been trying hard NOT to have anything on the front panel at least for CSP1 (the beta test board). Since the front panel is what people see it should be done with some sense of style which is something I seriously lack. We would have to decide what the button looks like, does it have an LED to let people know the status of shutdown or not etc. I don't want to delay the release of the CSP1 while these issues are being debated. I think I'l put some pads on the board that are connected to the PWR_BUTN signal but not actually include a button for it. During the beta test people can try it and see what happens and if it does work we can see if we want to include such a button in the general release version. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
bobtob wrote: Hey Guys, What you think of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lud4QTyOn_g can we get driver for touchscreen ? Would be nice to have touchscreen to control and have feedback. I can donate one LCD unit with board for testing purposes :-) Bob That particular adapter board will not work with the CSP1, it is designed to fit with the IO connectors on the wand carrier board. CSP1 has a single high density connector that has all of those signals so a different adapter board could be made. Designing such an adapter is very easy, but has to be specific for one particular display, there is no standard hardware parallel interface specification. Then the drivers have to exist and get included in CSOS and a way for jivelite to know to use that frame buffer. All this can be done, but we don't want it to be a gating factor in the delivery of the first product. After CSP1 gets out there and people start using it we can start discussing what size displays people actually want, find what displays are available, come up with case form factors and all that fun stuff and then come up with a solution to meet that. As to how to physically do it, a concept I've been throwing around my brain is a display that fits on the front of the existing box, just unscrew the front panel, the display has cutout in its back through which go two cables, one that fits in the aux connector and one to either one of the internal usb John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
bobtob wrote: Hey Guys, What you think of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lud4QTyOn_g can we get driver for touchscreen ? Would be nice to have touchscreen to control and have feedback. I can donate one LCD unit with board for testing purposes :-) Bob That particular adapter board will not work with the CSP1, it is designed to fit with the IO connectors on the wand carrier board. CSP1 has a single high density connector that has all of those signals so a different adapter board could be made. Designing such an adapter is very easy, but has to be specific for one particular display, there is no standard hardware parallel interface specification. Then the drivers have to exist and get included in CSOS and a way for jivelite to know to use that frame buffer. All this can be done, but we don't want it to be a gating factor in the delivery of the first product. After CSP1 gets out there and people start using it we can start discussing what size displays people actually want, find what displays are available, come up with case form factors and all that fun stuff and then come up with a solution to meet that. As to how to physically do it, a concept I've been throwing around my brain is a display that fits on the front of the existing box, just unscrew the front panel, the display has a cutout in its back through which go two cables, one that fits in the aux connector and one to either one of the internal usb or the drive power connector. It's not a single slab like a Touch or SB3 since the original box is still sitting flat on the shelf with the display sticking upright on the front. BUT it enables us to have more than one display size without coming up with complete separate products for each. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
bobtob wrote: John, How would you compare sound quality of CSP1 to DDDAC 1794. Im currently working on one planning to use communitysqueeze player as a source. Bob I don't have the DDDAC 1794 but I have built a NOS 1794 myself so I know what they sound like. Doede's design is a reasonbly decent implementation, but CSP1 should be quite a bit better. I was a long time NOS advocate because it does ssound better to me, BUT the aliases still exist and it sounds even better if you get rid of them. The secret I have found is to throw away the digital filters in the DAC chips (because they don't sound good, I've gone over details of this in other posts) and replace them with digital filters that DO sound good and get rid of the aliases. The result is much better sound than either NOS or builtin digital filter. For CSP1 we are doing the digital filter in software (built in to Squeezelite). So you COULD use CSOS with the DDAC 1794 and do the upsampling in CSOS. But I think that the implementation in CSP1 is going to be superior to what is in DDDAC 1794, so overall I think it is going to sound better. (but of course I'm going to say that!) John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
JIJ3 wrote: John, will you be able to make the I2S connections on your carrier board LVDS? If not, please make 3.3V and GND available on the header for an external LVDS transmitter and receiver. If I2S is available on the beta boards, I would be able to thoroughly test them. Thanks for all your incredible effort. Jack I'm just taking the signals from the module and putting them on the connector. Most of these signals come direct from the processor, so they will be in whatever form they come off the processor. Some of the display signals are in LVDS but those are the only ones I know of that are. The I2S signals are definately NOT LVDS. Sure, there will be some 3.3 and ground pins onthe connector. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
cmiu wrote: Hi, kudos for the project (both hardware and software) When the final board will be ready it will be possible to buy only the carrier board? in my case I already have a quad wandboard and i don't want to buy another cpu board for the moment. Did you take in consideration to involve more people in the development of the driver for the new carrier board? If I understand correctly this is the main choke point at the moment. After you will finish this project maybe you will take in consideration to make another carrier board with only ethernet, i2s connector and usb for the people who already have an USB dac or DIY hardcores :) KR Catalin Numerous requests have been made for people to help with driver writing, but nobody has expressed any interest, are you volunteering? Yes we always plan to have just the carrier board available. You can do everything you mentioned right now with the wandboard as is, it comes with a USB host port that works with most USB DACs and the I2S pins are available on the IO connectors on the wandboard. JackOfAll is working on an I2S driver that will work with that. The one thing a DIY type might be missing is a way to get an external clock into the processor. The signals for this are on the module (which is one of the reasons for choosing the wandboard in the first place), BUT is not brought out to the IO connectors. The CSP1 carrier board WILL have the I2S and external clock signals on an internal connector. I'm not sure a separate board will be developed just for this purpose, we are getting some economies of scale here and producing a board that only a few people are going to want is going to wind up costing more than the full blown board with everything on it. If someone really wants the board without the DAC chips and headphone amp they can unsolder those parts. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
cathcam wrote: So, something that was compatible with the SB Touch power supply, or a common Dell laptop type power brick would be very useful since these can be picked up cheap from RadioShack and even used electronics stores. Is that what you had in mind? The very first release of the hardware (CSP1) will be for beta testers, it will be just the CSP1 carrier board. The people using it will need to get their own wandboard, case and power supply, all these are readily available. A SBT supply will work fine. The most recent supplies that came with Touches are the supply we are recommending (a Phi Hong, but I don't remember the model number, it is in this thread) After the beta time the plan is that both a board by itself and a finished product with the above supply will be offered. The user is then free to try whatever 5V supply they wish. After the boards get built and in people's hands I'm sure there will be quite a few tests to determine how sensitve the design is to different supplies and what works well with it. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
JJZolx wrote: Any chance that the whole thing can be packaged with an internal power supply in a larger case with an IEC socket, or are the logistics of finding another case and manufacturing a second backplate too much for this project? It is certainly possible to do, but not going to happen for the first round, it adds significant cost, and more important TIME to market. We are trying very hard to actually get something done and everything added to the project increases the time before something is ready to send out. The current incarnation actually has far more stuff on it than I had planned on for a first cut, adding a GOOD built in power supply is just going to push it over the edge and it will never get done. And yes the regulatory tests would then have to be done and that adds even more time. Its a can of worms I don't want to get involved in right now. It could be done in the future, but I personally think it is unlikely, a power supply such as my design is not cheap, it is big heavy and dissipates a lot of heat. The cost of the parts alone are more than the rest of the electronics. The market for that is most likely going to be much smaller which which means economy of scale in parts price and assembly price are not nearly as good, the upshot is it's going to cost 3 times as much to make. Keeping it a separate electronics box and power supply SEEMS like a good thing at first glance, but over all it will probably be a lot easier and actually cheaper to have a two box solution. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
widman wrote: I have been following this thread with interest and was hoping for an update on the current status of the project. Thanks, Pete From the hardware side the design for CSP1 is done. We are currently waiting for some custom oscillators to be manufactured. JackOfAll is working on the driver for the DAC chip using the SWAMP board. I don't want to finalize the board design until we know we have drivers that work, I don't want to find out that oops, this pin needs to be inverted after the board files have been sent out. Between garden variety wandboards and the SWAMP board I think we can get the software working for everything we need. Those oscillators are probably going to be the gating item on getting CSP1 hardware built. The test boards I've done for DAC chips, regulators etc are working extremely well. The concept I'm working with is bypassing the internal digital filter in the DAC chip by doing the upsampling in software on the processor, this is turning out to sound extremely good. My original goal for this project was to get very good sound out of this, way better than it's price would suggest, but the results I'm getting right now indicate this is significantly better than that, it's getting close to the best there is. It's that good. Unfortunately in order to get that lofty performance might take a really good power supply, better than the basic switcher being talked about in this thread. After we get the real hardware built and people using it we will have to do some experiments with power supplies and find out what the real sesitivities are. I'm doing quite a bit to try and cut down on PS sensitivity, but experiments still show that the really good supplies sound better. The software guys continue to improve the software side, Triode and JackOfAll have done a phenominal job getting this all working, it's further along now than any other project I've ever worked on has been at this stage. My personal goal is to have CSP1s built and ready to send to the beta testers before the end of the year. I know everybody wants them tomorrow, but that is not going to happen. Well I guess that is about it for now. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Sample rate limitations on SB3 and earlier
As pipin mentioned the limitation is with the processor used in the SB3 and earlier devices, it can only handle a data rate up to 48KHz, so it supports only 44.1 and 48. The Touch and Radio use much faster processors that can handle the faster sample rates rates. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=99319 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
JJZolx wrote: Has anyone seen this yet? Future Electronics has developed an adapter card to fit a touchscreen LCD to the Wandboard. It plugs into the expansion headers on the Wandboard's stock carrier board. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVt8eh6bnRE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lud4QTyOn_g#at=15 http://www.futureelectronics.com/en/technologies/development-tools/development-tool-hardware/Pages/9032471-FWBADAPT-7WVGA-PCAP.aspx?IM=0 http://www.futureelectronics.com/en/technologies/semiconductors/lcd-display-solutions/touch-screens/Pages/3016916-F07A-0102.aspx?IM=0 Are these expansion headers being considered for the Squeeze board? To your first question: no you cannot spread out the module and carrier, the module has to plug directly into the carrier board socket. There are a lot of very high speed signals running over that connector, any form of cable to go between boards is bound to have a significant negative impact on the signal integrity. To the question on the display, yes I have seen it. No those exact connectors are not going to be on CSP1, they take up way too much room. Instead there will be a 50 pin .5mm FFC connector with the same signals, so that exact board will not work, but it is a simple board to go between the 50 pin cable and any display. The problem is that the cables to the displays are not standardized, so a separate board would probably have to be designed for each different type of display desired. There are at least 4 different display interfaces on the wand module: HDMI, full parallel, LVDS and SPI. HDMI gets it's own connector on the back, and the other three are on the 50 pin connector. There are actually a few more supported by the processor, but I don't think they are on the EDM connector. The big issue is going to be software. The wand sdk comes with drivers for HDMI and LVDS, HDMI is already in CSOS, JackOfAll says the LVDS will be easy, but the other two will most likely take some work. BTW that display from Future Electronics uses the full parallel interface. So even if you get a board to interface to a panel it may take some time to get the software working for it. BTW the inexpensive modules you can get on ebay use either the SPI or full parallel interface, so even if a cheap adapter will connect them to the 50 pin connector, it may take some significant effort to get a driver working. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
unclemat wrote: I am psyched to see this happening! I got a full house of Squeezeboxes plus a decent stash of spare ones, but I'd totally pick up a new one. The most essential feature I'd look for is multichannel streaming over HDMI. FLAC PCM would do, but if it also could do DSD from DSF files that would be frickin awesome. Needs nothing else, not even on-board DAC, but I'd not mind it (and could come handy). As far as I am concerned it could be completely headless as long as it could be controlled from another Squeezebox like Touch or a mobile app like IPeng. Multichannel is going to be a problem, the hardware can handle multichannel over HDMI no problem, but the whole squeezebox software infrastructure is only two channel. Current techniques such as DTS encoding in a FLAC or WAV file should work out of the box, but a full blown discrete multichannel is going to take some form of encoding into high bitrate FLAC or WAV type thing, that will be properly handled by whatever your HDMI is plugged into. I'm not up on the current state of such things to know if this already exists or not. The current design of the players does not have a DSD DAC, it was not part of the original concept and adding it will take a significant amount of time and extra money in each box. DoP over USB to a DoP aware DAC will work fine. There is software available that will convert DSD files into DoP encoded FLAC, these will work fine in the SB environment. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
mps wrote: Hi, Dos anyone know I will be able to plug an IR emitter into the new box to use with IRBlaster? If so, will it need to be NEC/RC5 (like the Touch) or also support RAW (like all other models)? Thanks, Mike All external interfaces such as this are being done through USB. So to use an IR blaster you will need a USB IR blaster, there are quite a few on the market. Someone will have to write an applet that talks to this USB device and sends out the codes. I don't think there is any direct way to use as is the existing IR blaster plugin, this runs on the server side and sends codes to the player via slimproto, currently slimproto is being read by squeezelite, which just deals with the audio and ignores the special codes such as IR. Jivelite which is he part that has the lua interpreter which can talk to the hardware doesn't read slimproto. So some other way will have to be written to perform the function. (Note: I did NOT say it's impossible, just not written yet!) I'm not sure whether it will be written entirely as an applet, or a combination of applet and plugin, Either way could work depending on what functionality is desired. Anyway, if there is enough interest I'm sure someone will write something. BTW this does not require the CSP1 (or 2) hardware, , since it just uses USB it can work right now on a wandboard, so if there is someone just itching to start working on this it can be done right now. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
epoch1970 wrote: I think John wanted all GPIO-related things go to an add-on USB box. Or even bluetooth. There are some inexpensive bluetooth modules with GPIO pins, no cables needed! (unfortunately you then have to get POWER to that bluetooth module) John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
I think I MIGHT have a solution. Not all the connectors on the top of the board go all the way up to the top, I MIGHT be able to put a panel mount eSATA connector above some of these on the back panel. There are readily available SATA to eSATA brackets which are designed to fit standard PC board slots, the connector is just screwed to the bracket. That connector could be screwed to the back panel. It would take a special back panel but I am sure some enterprising people here could make such a back panel. I'll have to see if there is going to be anyplace on the panel that one of these connectors would actually fit, but it looks like it might work. If it does work I don't plan on making this hole part of the standard back plate, those that really want to use eSATA rather than USB for an external drive can come up with one, or put the whole thing in a different enclosure. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
erland wrote: Correct, it's even an issue both with an internal drive and an external drive, but the risk of someone disconnecting it abruptly is a lot higher with an external drive. Good idea. It's still going to be tricky to make an automatic solution work in all different scenarios, but generally it's a good idea. If the LMS library files aren't stored on the drive, it feels like the drive should only be active when playing music, which should make it easy to trigger the unmount, just stop playing music and wait for 2 minutes for the LED to be turned off. Do I remember correctly that there are connections available that will make it possible to attach a software controlled LED to the board ? Or was it already in the plan to have a software controlled LED available as default ? I'm also guessing a soft power off button/eject button would be possible to connect via USB which triggers the necessary software ? I had originally thought of a software controlable LED, but the implementation got messy so I decided on just a simple power LED. A USB controlled LED or two are so inexpensive these days it seemed better to go that route for now. At least for the first round of this when we are still trying to figure out exactly what we want it to do. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
JIJ3 wrote: John, please give us DIYers the necessary info to access the I2S signals. I don't personally mind if I have to cut traces to connect LVDS transmitters and receivers, but some may like dedicated pins. To bring in external clocks, what frequencies will be required? 22.579 and 24.576 MHz? Thanks for all your incredible effort, Jack OK, what I'll do is put a 24pin .5mm FFC connector on the board with I2S, MCLK, MCLK in, a frequency family selection signal (chooses between 22.5792 and 24.576) and a signal to specify if you are feeding an MCLK into the board. The pinout is going to be the same as the ABC boards. The connector is going to be in the isolated domain. I will send out the raw I2S (not reclocked), if you need to reclock do that on your board as close to the DAC chip as possible. I will not provide specific sample rate info, just the family selection. If you need to determine the actual sample rate you can do that by analyzing the I2S signal. The MCLK coming out will be either 22.5792 or 24.576, if you are supplying your own MCLK you must use one of those frequencies. You must be prepared to alter the polarity of the clock, I cannot guarantee the timing of the I2S signals will be appropriate for all reclockers, you must be prepared to change the polarity sent to the board to compensate for this. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
There seems to be a lot of interest in an eSATA port, there currently is no way to do this, the back panel is completely full of connectors, it simply will not fit. The choices are: 1) keep the same enclosure size and get rid of one or more existing connectors to have room for the eSATA connector. 2) choose a bigger box so there is room for the connector #1: Every connector on the back of this box has already been vociferously fought for by it's proponents. No way am I going to arbitrarily delete something. Those of you that want an eSATA connector on the back, start horse trading. If everybody here can come to an agreement as to which existing jacks get axed I'll do so. But do it quickly, the design of the board is well under way. #2: The chosen Hammond enclosure is already the widest one they have in the series. It was chosen because it is widely available and inexpensive. It meets the needs of full shielding, easy to assemble (just slide in the board and screw in the front and back plate), easy to customize a backplate for the connectors (just a flat plate), looks fairly decent and comes in both natural aluminum color and black. Anything else I can find that is wider costs way more, or is custom and needs large numbers, or is much harder to assemble etc. Also note that as the board grows in size it also gets more expensive. If anyone can come up with an alternative enclosure that has similar characteristics and is enough wider to support an eSATA jack, post it here and I'll see if it will work. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
gstew wrote: John, I too want I2S access, but unlike JIJ3, I'd prefer pins on a connector or at least a place where I can install connectors (u.fl?) so I don't have to mutilate (and possibly permanently damage) the board. Also, John, I saw your comments on the Audio Asylum on a 3-zone DAC with inter-zone isolation and separate power supplies. I haven't seen any comments in these threads that this will included isolated zones, but whether you do or not, the ability to separately power the DACs (and any other relevant related components) separate from the card's other processing (and the main Wandboard) might allow some potential quality improvements. Of course, the stock configuration would have jumpers connecting these power zones together. And of course, you may have great reasons for why these are just dumb ideas. Feel free to ignore if they are. And many thanks to you, Jack, and everyone else making this possible!!! Greg in Mississippi The board is going to be a two zone design with the processor and digital interfaces in one and the DAC chip, main clocks, reclocking flops and S/PDIF outs in the other. The two zones are separated by isolators on all signals between zones. The details of how the grounding and power supply is done and WHY I did it that way are quite complex and would take way more time than I want to spend describing in these forums. The simplified version is that there is just one 5V raw supply feeding both zones, BUT because of how the board is layed out and the isolators used on signals between zones it behaves as if it has two supplies. So you get the advantage of the isolation between zones, but only need one supply. I have tested this out on some test boards I built and it really does work. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
epoch1970 wrote: How about a USB header for internal use ? About the connector cable, I am afraid I have a slight tendency to break small ZIF connectorsÂ… However, I don't really see a way around. I am sure having access to all these interfaces will please a lot of people. Does it make sense to ask said adapter board to support an IR receiver/decoder ? I know the task is supposed to be handled by an usb device, but I'm not sure I'd like to use that (hanging off the back, line-of-sightÂ…) And again, thanks for your hard work, John. Are you talking about the dual row .1 inch headers sometimes seen on Motherboards for connecting USB? I don't see why that would be better over having a real USB connector on the board. Those headers are NOT proper impedance, just cheap, putting a real connector on the board is much better from a signal integrity standpoint and takes up less room on the board. For an IR receiver if you want an internal one just use one of the internal USB connectors. That's one of the things that will be talked about during the beta period, is a builtin front panel receiver something we have to have. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
Kuro wrote: What is the purpose of the USB hub chip? I want to see the original 2 USB ports routed to the outside world and not with a hub in between. I've done some testings with other ARM platforms and I found that my USB audio device sounds best if the USB port it plugs into is not sharing bandwidth with another USB port via a hub. I usually plugs in an ext. HDD to the ARM box where all my music files are located. There are many people that want to do lots of things with USB. If you have an async UAC1 DAC you have to use a hub to get it to work at all. The OTG port without a hub will also be on the back so if you want to plug a USB DAC in without a hub you can use that. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
adamdea wrote: I've been following this thread with interest. has the activity moved somewhere else or is the project having a pause? The design of CSP1 uses a bunch of chips I have not used before so I decided to make test boards for them before going with a final design of CSP1. In the last two months I have done 7 test boards that cover all these parts. I now know how to use these parts, how to actually make them work. Several of them had issues at first because the spec sheets were unclear how to actually make them work. It's one of those things that now that I know what they do I can see that the spec sheets actually do say that, but it was very unclear or downright misleading with the original reading. The swamp boards have had some problems so I hadn't sent one to Clive to start on the custom driver work. With these test chips out of the way I finally had some time to do some debugging. I now have them working well. It turned out that massive surface mount connector is almost impossible to solder by hand. Originally I didn't think it was going to be that bad. It took a long time to get those two connectors fully soldered. I am VERY glad that the real thing is going to be assembled by a professions assembly house, I'll let THEM try and figure out how to solder this thing! Anyway I just shipped one off to Clive so hopefully we can start getting some work done on the custom drivers. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
I've been doing some initial work on the CSP1 layout and it looks like there is going to be a little bit of spare area so I'm going to put some internal connectors on the board. I've decided to use a 7 port USB hub chip, there will be 4 ports on the back and 3 internal ports. Two of the ports on the back will be full size type A ports and the other two will be small ones. The internal ports will be small as well. So which do I use, mini or micro ports? They both use about the same board space so I can go either way. I'm also considering putting things like SPI, I2C, LVDS display and the paralel LCD interface on connectors. The problem is what connector to use. Most DIY types like to use the .1 dual row sockets, but they take up a LOT of room, I don't have that much room. My favorite is the .5mm FFC cable connectors, they are small, reliable, cheap and come in large numbers of pins. BUT that pretty much means a custom board on the other side to mate with the cable. I could do a simple adapter board which I could make available to those that wanted to tinker. (price would be somewhere between $50 and $15 depending on how many are made) Any thoughts on these? JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Thinking of going with SqueezePlug - a couple of (maybe obvious) questions...
Mnyb wrote: I seriusly doubt that any arm CPU based device has the power to actually run SoX, but I could be wrong . If you use top command do you see it running and is the PI chocked at 100% CPU ? I'm running the Squeezelite with builtin sox resampling on the wandboard and it takes a whopping 6% cpu. Now the wandboard has a more powerful CPU, but it still should be usable on the PI. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=98939 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] State of play in the Squeezebox-replacement world 6/13?
drunkahol wrote: I guess I'm just wondering if it's worth looking to widen the hardware scope of the projects to be able to run them on different boards. There's certainly a case for running a powerful board that can both serve LMS, playback streams, digital output, HDMI output, rich control menus, IR control etc. But there's also a case for the most brutally simple board that is only capable of simple audio stream playback. Cheers Duncan Just to add a little more to what JackOfAll stated, many parts are applicable to many of these boards. The part that is not is the actual linux kernel, it is compiled with the hardware drivers that are needed by the wandboard. The different manufacturers of ARM chips have very different ways to access the peripherals on the chips. These are usually compiled into the kernel so you need to know what the hardware is going to be when you create the kernel. The result is that we don't have an image that can just be loaded on any ARM board and it will run. At the moment this cannot be done. There is another major issue. The USB implementations on these boards are NOT equivalent. Many of them cannot handle an asynchronous USB DAC properly, especially at higher sample rates. When choosing the right platform to run CS on we checked out several and decided on the Freescale iMX6 because it has a USB implementation that works well for audio. In addition we chose the wandboard specifically because it uses a module approach where the core processor parts are on a module that lets us have access to the low level interfaces of the processor chip which are necessary for our hardware implementation. If you are just going to plug in a USB DAC this is not necessary, but for the hardware implementation I'm working on, this is needed. The wandboard met all of our requirements nicely and was readily available so we decided to go with it as the official platform for CSOS. As JackOfAll mentioned most of the squeeze specific components will work fine on other ARMv7 hardware, BUT you need a Fedora 8 linux system running on first. This is something that will have to be developed separately for each platform. I don't think there are any plans right now to officially support other hardware implementations. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=98886 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
Squeezed_Rotel wrote: Swamp0.5 that is :) Any news? And of course I do realize that this board is for the developers only, but I'm so excited about the CSP1 and 2 release that I was hoping 0.5 was in test. I look forward to the eventual release of the CSP 1/2 board with balanced out. I've been mostly working on small test boards to try out individual new chips and techniques before finalizing CSP1. SWAMP05 is up and running CSOS, but only as a platform for USB DACs and TOSLINK. The Driver modifications necessary for talking to the on board DAC have not been worked on very much. The software guys have been focusing on CSOS. I need to get another board assembled and sent out to them so we can get working on that part. I was just granted access to the developer area for the DAC chip, there are supposedly linux drivers available for the chips that we can use for starters, but I haven't found them yet. I haven't been posting much, but that is because I have been very busy working on things behind the scenes. This is definitely moving forward. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
The CSP1 (and presumably others) will support up to a three way crossover functionality. The board has three DAC chips, one feeding the RCA jacks, one feeding the + pins on the XLRs and one feeding the - pins on the XLRs. All are being fed the same I2S signal but each has its own miniDSP which can be independantly programed. Those DSPs can easily be programmed to implement pretty much any type of crossover function you want. The - pins are implemented as a negate block in the process flow for that DAC chip. You will have to make an adapter that plugs into the XLR jacks to take the two pins as as two single ended outputs. I will come up with a generic process flow for the miniDSPs that has various components that can be muxed in or out at run time. The idea is that someone writes a web page that is used to set the paramters of the filters, these paramters are then programmed into the the DAC chips either at boot time or on the fly. The details of this can all be worked out later, the hardware can support it from the beginning. So it's not true multichannel, but it will support up to a three way crossover network. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
S.Ochoa wrote: John, that is good news about the multichannel out! Do you see it feasible to use the Wandboard for the DSP? I think the miniDSP would be good for to 2 biquads (1 per ch) for crossovers and notches (6 x IIR allpass, 1, 2 order in series ) + 3 LR biquad DCR filters. Do you know what is the max delay available on a channel? FIR filters would be naturally very welcome but that would have to be done at the Wandboard, if at all... I would very much volunteer as a Gen1 tester if possible. I can help with localization spanish too, and whatever else I can... S. There is a 128 tap FIR block available, but 128 taps is not much. There is a delay element with up to 600 samples and 6 outs. Each output can be programmed to be anything in that 1 - 600 delay range. It should be possible to add brutefir through jack, but you only get one pair of channels from the processor to the DAC chips. So a room correction could be done in brutefir and then the crossovers done in the miniDSPs. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
JJZolx wrote: Does anyone have any thoughts/interest in the possibility of powering the device using PoE (Power over Ethernet)? Depending on the final cost, this could end up being a good device for assembling multi-room audio systems. Small, headless, low power ... I can see people wanting to mount them in places where power may not be available. John? I'm not sure how useful that would be for CSP1 or 2, you still need an amp and speakers which need power. The only thing it can drive direct is headphones, one or two people might want to use it for headphones with just an ethernet cable and no power, but I can't see that as a large segment. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
ccaudle wrote: Wow, that's really wide bandwidth. What is the output noise? Which regulators by the way? I had assumed monolithic, but I guess you could have cooked something up with video op-amps and pass transistors to get something with that kind of bandwidth. I'm interested to see the final design, sounds like it should be pretty good. -- Chris C It IS a monolythic! The TI TPS7A4700, it's brand new so it's fairly unknown. It has 4uV wide band noise at any of its output voltages. It can be programmed to go from 1.4V to 20V in .1V steps by grounding specifc pins. Just looking at it's spec sheet caused my to shake all over, it's an amazing little chip. I did a comparison with one of my discrete regulators I've been using for a while and it comes out very similar, one chip and a few caps replacing 10 transistors and a pile of resistors and caps, MUCH simpler, smaller and cheaper. Its only problem is that it only comes in a tiny little QFN, which make home assembly a little difficult. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
ccaudle wrote: Switching supplies can make life hard. Assuming a reasonably modern switcher the basic switching rate would probably be somewhere around 100kHz-200kHz, with harmonics extending into a few MHz assuming it is switching with fast edges to improve efficiency. The basic switching rate would probably fall into the right range that if it modulates the clock, the lower modulation sidebands will fall in the middle of the audio band. The DAC probably has 0dB PSRR at those frequencies, so any of the noise that is not completely filtered from the DAC power supply causes AM of the output, potentially PM on the output if the power supply noise modulates the clock input switching threshold, and potentially direct PM of the oscillator if the noise gets on the oscillator power supply. Just painful all around. Would be interesting to figure out how much filtering would be required to get any power supply noise effects reduced to inaudible. What kind of noise amplitude and spectrum is on the output of that supply? -- Chris C Actually the regulators I'm using have 60db PSRR out to over 3MHz. The clocks and DAC chip have separate regulators. I haven't done a full analysis of the power at different points (haven't had the time!) I should do that soon. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
I have a little more time to add some more detail. These listening sessions were not used as a squeezebox, I had the DAC board connected to an existing XMOS based USB input board which was sending data to my board. I had done a lot of work to try and isolate things with proper ground plane use etc with the hope that issues such as USB cables and different power supplies would have little effect. As far as cables went it worked. We tried different USB cables on other XMOS input DACs and found significant sonic degradation with some cables, with the new system, there was very little change with any cable. BUT the power supply sensitivity still seemed to be there. Switching from a Touch supply to one of my good linear supplies made a significant difference. Still no idea exactly WHY. The switching supply is not BAD, it still sounds quite good, WAY WAY better than a Touch, but with my linear supply it went from really really good to WOW! This is a little disapointing to me, I had been trying to design something that would work just as well no matter what the PS input. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
I thought I'd give you all another hardware update. I've been spending the last three weeks trying to get a DAC chip test board with all the parts the parts that will be used in the actual CSP1. This turned out to be incredibly difficult. Some of the new chips come in tiny little packages that are almost impossible to solder by hand. I went through a whole bunch of parts, multiple boards and designs but I eventually worked out a process I can do in my own lab that will let me put together a board with any of these chips on them. In addition to the DAC chip I was also trying to get the DAC chip programming working. I was using the BeagleBone board to program tghe DAC chip. This again was an interesting experience, it turns out the DAC chip is using a different version of the protocol than the BeagleBone's driver is se3nding out. It turned out is was easier for me to hack in some extra hardware to change it than to figure out how to modify the driver. Any way as of late last week I have a working DAC test board with all the actual parts I will be using, and I can program the registers on the DAC chip. How do I put this, with the right parameters and tweaked just right it is literally spine tingling. I was listening to this with a friend yesterday, when it got dialed in just right I was literally getting goose bumps listening to music through this. This is way better than I ever dared to hope. It's going to take awhile to get this out to you all, but it is definitely going to be worth it. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Community Funded Squeezebox Replacement - Would you be interested?
P Nelson wrote: The FAQ says the sdpof connector for digital out is a BNC. I thought most equipment uses RCA for this connector? I hope someone makes a reasonable priced converter as I want to avoid buying a custom cable. Paul The S/PDIF spec says the connections should be 75 ohms, yet for some unknowable reason they chose RCA jacks as the official hardware interface for electrical S/PDIF which are in the 25 ohm range, a HUGE mismatch in impedance terms. (why they didn't use type F connectors I'll never know, they are cheap, and widely available). BNC connectors come in 75 ohms which IS correct for the spec. RCA to BNC adpaqters and cables are readily available so I'm putting a 75 ohm connector on the board so those that want to do it right and keep a true 75 ohm match can do so. If I put an RCA jack on the board then nobody can do it right even if they want to. Unfortunately BNCs come in both 50 ohm and 75 ohm, 50 ohm being by far the most popular, so when buying a cable make SURE it is using 75 ohm BNC connectors. I did a sampling of 75 ohm cables with BNCs a few years ago and found that about 80% of them used 50 ohm connectors on their 75 ohm cables! So just because the it says its 75 ohm cable does NOT mean the connectors are truly 75 ohm. Blue Jeans cable sells some very nice cables that really do have true 75 ohm BNCs. As far as adapters go, most of what you will find are actually going to be 50 ohm BNC to RCA, but since the RCA is so far off who cares if the BNC is wrong. John S. JohnSwenson's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5974 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97881 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
