We need a new standard in transferring digital signals between audio equipment.

[PeterSt]

9 hours ago, R1200CL said:

Shouldn't they at least be updated to be fiber optics ?

 

This is irrelevant because it is just a vehicle. Not a protocol or something. And as has been said, it is used for as long as the CD is around. Additionally you'll always need to deal with conversion because no DAC or PC will be all the way glass internally.

 

9 hours ago, R1200CL said:

Can everything be converted to Ethernet ?

 

This is a bit of the same response. It would be a matter of setting the standard, but without it you can already chose it ans use it.

 

2 hours ago, One and a half said:

HDMI has a shitty connector, can have clock data, but no one has set a standard.

 

There must be something wrong here because the connector is as shitty as how you buy the cable (the one we use is far from shitty but also costs 10 euros or so). The generic cables you can buy are 100% shitty because no electrical standards are  applied (this mostly relates to grounding and the shell). 

Lastly, HDMI is used for i2s only and although indeed nobody set a standard, every DAC etc. manufacturer uses the same pinout, and so do I at providing our HDMI^2. It always works for everyone.

This is not to be confused with HDMI from your monitor that carries video and sound at the same time. That "standard" is not for audio at all. It is easy to think it is though. So only i2s ... (just as often done by Ethernet cable as well).

[PeterSt]

1 hour ago, R1200CL said:

So you could easily create fiber in on your DAC ?

Both USB and SPDIF?

 

But of course ! This is already because there are many after market products for this. I mentioned Adnaco elsewhere recently (they were the first with this IIRC, more than 10 years ago). It will give you an idea.

But it won't sound better because of it. There wil be isolation, but what this does is "relative". All together it is more harmful than useful.

 

Etc. etc. etc.

(can of worms stuff)

 

[PeterSt]

4 hours ago, lmitche said:

Have you listened to the Adnaco USB solution with industrial 10gbps SFPs, high quality fiber and high quality power supplies?

 

Thank you Larry. But no, I did not do that (back at the time !). I know that the expected culprit was the power supply, but back then there was no time to make one (the fine power supplies were far more rare back then), because the unit had to be send back to Canada (I think that was Canada).

If today this works, then good ! But the reason would be beyond me, with the isolators we currently have, and which also did not exist back then for the highest speed of USB2 (480).

But sure I believe you. The why could be interesting ...

[PeterSt]

18 minutes ago, One and a half said:

or has I2S morphed into an LVDS transmission these last few years?

 

It has. And it comes over HDMI as well. However:

 

19 minutes ago, One and a half said:

Isn't I2S limited only by a few cm?

 

It formally is. But if one is a bit more experienced on i2s, (like designing D/A converters which I do) then you are quite well capable of making a cable for it which even works very well at 200cm. Well, this is exaggerated, but the other day I really sold an HDMI^2 of that length and never saw it back.

Notice that i2s contains the raw clock (oscillator) signal on one of its wires, so you really need to be careful and know what you're doing, including the ability to measure at the speeds of concern (say 45MHz).

 

Point is: for quite a long time by now (over 10 years, I'd say) DACs with external i2s connections/inputs are offered and because Ethernet cable as well as HDMI cable offer the proper grounding and twisting in the internal cable, the i2s data actually transmits quite well inherently already. Still, although I recall my first i2s connection from the PC and a tweaked Juli@t card to be 45 cm of length, that was a. way better than the Jul@t itself via its digital outputs, but b. exhibited way too much jitter.

So notice that the length of the i2s cable induces more jitter at the longer length. But not it you take care of the signal strength, to name something. In the case of the separately sold cable it is really a matter of taking all precautions about the signal remaning "as strong", the easiest explained by means of the cable having the least roll off at the longest length. That this implies proper shielding, proper impedance margins and from there the right dielectric, is something which makes that not everybody can do this "just like that".

 

LVDS is indeed about the signal strength, but mainly about the signals being offered in balanced fashion (say like XLR does). DACs accepting LVDS will work with HDMI (or maybe something proprietary but I have never seen that).

Btw, LVDS is also an internal "wire" (chip-to-chip) thing, but it is better than normal i2s.

[PeterSt]

1 hour ago, kdubious said:

@Rexp We had one based on the Burr Brown PCM1794.

 

Take the PCM1704U-K then (24/768).

😜

[PeterSt]

6 minutes ago, Superdad said:

I seem to recall that you (at Phasure) own nearly all the world's remaining PCM1704 stock.

 

Haha, Alex, true. At least back then I bought everything I could. But at some stage I may not know where to go with it all.

That's why this advertisement. 😬

[PeterSt]

17 minutes ago, kdubious said:

Seven hundred sixty eight what from that chip?

 

Sure. For more than 10 years by now and always on (24/7). And 10+ years more, but nobody knew.

[PeterSt]

3 minutes ago, kdubious said:

And now you have chips to sell? Or DAC boards?

 

That could be so, yes.

[PeterSt]

6 hours ago, Superdad said:

Where I recall @PeterSt being the first was

 

Haha, yes, those were the days. On the first page of this thread I mentioned the Juli@t audio interface card. That ended up in our first DAC (this was 2009) with an interface which today would be named Thunderbold. Btw, the other day I bought one back, just to have/save one sample from those days.

The Juli@t was a 24/192 card, but I tweaked it to 24/384. And so the first 24/384 audio interface emerged.

 

Only one year later async USB was too hot to let go (while I helped to design the very first async USB DAC - this was not Gordon Rankin's) and from there the first 24/768 USB interface emerged. These higher rate interfaces were obviously not to support audio files with that rate (although DXD (by 2L, 24/352.8) emerged at around the same time as our 24/384 DAC), but these rates were created in order to have the highest possible output rate by the PC, so a NOS DAC would be fed with any filter we could think of. And (generally) the higher the output rate, the better the digital filtering. So that is what Superdad/Alex refers to, but I can't say that I was the first with that, because @Miska did the same in parallel. So both we adhered the principle of doing in-PC what normally happens in-DAC. As we know today, the world went that direction indeed ...

 

Yes, maybe it is time for a new interface. 😎

[PeterSt]

32 minutes ago, kdubious said:

What's the UI Written in?

 

VB.NET.

Audio Engine in C++.

[PeterSt]

 

 

1 hour ago, Hauser said:

Adnaco

 

 

On 2/28/2021 at 1:09 PM, PeterSt said:

On 2/28/2021 at 11:29 AM, R1200CL said:

So you could easily create fiber in on your DAC ?

Both USB and SPDIF?

 

But of course ! This is already because there are many after market products for this. I mentioned Adnaco elsewhere recently (they were the first with this IIRC, more than 10 years ago). It will give you an idea.

But it won't sound better because of it. There wil be isolation, but what this does is "relative". All together it is more harmful than useful.

 

Etc. etc. etc.

(can of worms stuff)

 

 

[PeterSt]

15 minutes ago, lmitche said:

My Adnaco sat on the shelf for two years until I figured out how to get the best out of it a year ago.

 

Haha, Larry, so now you are keeping that a secret ?

(or I missed (or forgot) it somewhere - apologies in that case)

[PeterSt]

Hey Barrows,

 

I don't see you talking about how to get in that data over Ethernet; it needs to be "pulled".
Async USB virtually uses the 24MHz clock for that. The buffer is USB itself.

 

Regards,

Peter