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

[Superdad]

56 minutes ago, kdubious said:

Seven hundred sixty eight what from that chip?

 

Yes, the Burr-Brown PCM1704 has, from introduction in July 1998, been capable of accepting data at 768KHz sampling rate. The DF1704 was the filter chip BB offered to pair with the PCM1704 and it could be set to oversample 16X to feed the DAC. 

The capability has always been there, and there were a few DAC makers (Dodson was one IIRC) who ditched the lousy DF1704 and created their own filters to feed the PCM1704 at 768--internal to the DAC box of course.

But it was not until many years later--when USB at 768 was implemented--that computer to DAC at that rate became possible.

Where I recall @PeterSt being the first was that he was the first with software SRC to create that rate to send.  [And his "ARC prediction" filter is legendary; If only XX-HighEnd had an user interface that his mother could love... ]

[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. 😎

[kdubious]

@Superdad 

Quote

If only XX-HighEnd had an user interface that his mother could love...

@PeterSt

I know a software guy with some UI skills 😊

[kdubious]

@PeterSt 

Quote

On the first page of this thread I mentioned the Juli@t audio interface card.

Dave and I used to make a daughter card for the Juli@ that output I2S as LVDS over HDMI.

[kdubious]

@PeterSt I saw (once upon a time) that XXHighEnd requires .NET? What's the UI Written in?

[PeterSt]

32 minutes ago, kdubious said:

What's the UI Written in?

 

VB.NET.

Audio Engine in C++.

[kdubious]

@PeterSt WinForms or WPF? Does it need  some UX love? It’s not open source, right?

[R1200CL]

This is only related to clock data. I don’t know John’s answer directly can apply to other protocols / technologies in order to use fiber optics for digital audio. 
 

Does anyone have a link to the Belden technology / cables he talks about ?

 

I find his answer very nice, as John seems to have some interest in exploring the subject if time allows.  

 

 

[cab33]

Just use better cables!

[One and a half]

Samsung have just released their new 8k and 4K TVs with the slim frames. 
 

Ok, what they have done to avoid cable clutter to the TV is to have a single cable to the TV and the end of that a breakout box which has various legacy connections like HDMI, optical, headphones and so on. 
 

Surely with digital audio a USB C connector from a server or laptop could breakout to coax, USB A, optical, fibre, AES.  Alternatively have modular media boxes that cater for new protocols.

 

Legacy connections will still be around for many years heck look at the RCA connector, so rather replacing, why not combine all since that technology is established.

[R1200CL]

1 hour ago, One and a half said:

why not combine all since that technology is established.

That technology is outdated 😀

 

I chip integrating all protocols in one SFP+ interface maybe ?

[Cebolla]

On 3/3/2021 at 2:15 AM, kdubious said:

@Cebolla 

If only it did.

 

Given that Archimago's first-rate article highlighting MQA's technical failings doesn't automatically convince you not to bother supporting MQA, is your MQA contention actually more to do with "customer demand" for MQA?

[One and a half]

On 3/7/2021 at 7:52 AM, R1200CL said:

That technology is outdated 😀

 

I chip integrating all protocols in one SFP+ interface maybe ?

Well, the new interface would have to be that compelling, that legacy devices are obsolete in one swoop. Need to keep your old devices going for some time to come.

[R1200CL]

1 hour ago, One and a half said:

Well, the new interface would have to be that compelling, that legacy devices are obsolete in one swoop. Need to keep your old devices going for some time to come.

So we need something like this in addition maybe. 
It could even be limited to only one legacy out. 
And be used as an advanced USB reclocker with optical in. 
 

 

[kdubious]

@Cebolla “doesn't automatically convince you”

Sorry, but I think you misread my intention. I meant that the article has not convinced “everyone” that MQA is a bad idea. We (Musica Pristina) and I (Kevin Welsh) don’t support MQA, except perhaps in a roundabout way by having a Tidal account. Lossy is not good. WAV files are awesome. And we don’t need a new monopoly on content.

[jabbr]

On 2/27/2021 at 7:41 PM, R1200CL said:

AES/EBU SPDIF Toslink and USB. (I2S and probably more). I don’t include HMDI, but feel free to add that technology as well. 
 

Are these technologies outdated for modern digital audio ?

 

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

Wouldn’t we save us self al lot of issues regarding cables if all digital interfaces was via fiber optics ?

This includes clock signals. 

 

Which manufacturer is willing to start a new standard ? And why won’t they do ?

 

Can everything be converted to Ethernet ? Or at least use SFP as interface ?
 

I like to hear your thoughts about this, and hopefully some skilled members can participate. 
 

Do we need a new standard in transferring digital audio between our equipment ?

I prototyped a Zynq single chip interface which inputs SFP/SFP(+) and outputs I2S/DSD to a DAC ...

 

Basically runs a custom Linux kernel.

 

I have no interest in commercializing and supporting the software for what would cost a prohibitive amount of $$.

 

Thats to say it would be a lot of work for an unclear benefit. This is a hobby for me. I think a Power DAC which is what I suspect @Miska is working on is the way to go. This is essentially a software project.

[R1200CL]

On 3/14/2021 at 4:16 AM, jabbr said:

I prototyped a Zynq single chip interface which inputs SFP/SFP(+) and outputs I2S/DSD to a DAC

So in general it’s possible to take any digital protocols over SFP ? Only sw makes this possible ?

Why didn’t you go USB ? 

[Hauser]

Adnaco

[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)

 

 

[R1200CL]

......maybe it’s even possible to mix Ethernet and USB protocols in same cable 😀 ?

(Maybe not my smartest idea)

[Hauser]

What is the possibility of using that second fibre port of say a Solarflare PCIE network card and convert the signal to USB?

 

Martin.

[jabbr]

14 hours ago, R1200CL said:

So in general it’s possible to take any digital protocols over SFP ? Only sw makes this possible ?

Why didn’t you go USB ? 

The Zynq is a ARM/FPGA from Xilinx (which acquired Solarflare and is being acquired by AMD). An FPGA is essentially programmable hardware. The ARM chips run Linux and use device drivers to communicate with the FPGA (memory mapped). The *purpose* of doing this is to provide an Ethernet input module for a DAC which allows the DAC to send its clock into this module such that the IO uses the clock domain of the DAC.

 

The FPGA can be programmed to connect IO lines to an SFP module as well as USB. It can also be programmed to output I2S/DSD IO lines.

 

Typically you'd load an SGMII module and then IwIP on top of which you run TCP in a driver.

 

If you want to run a different protocol than Ethernet on an SFP, you can you just write a FPGA module for that protocol.

 

So if you developed a new Protocol converter using an ARM/FPGA  what makes this better? What are you trying to achieve?

[jabbr]

54 minutes ago, Hauser said:

What is the possibility of using that second fibre port of say a Solarflare PCIE network card and convert the signal to USB?

 

Martin.

That's called an NAA.

[R1200CL]

30 minutes ago, jabbr said:

What are you trying to achieve?

Just trying to understand what may or may not be possible.
 

Of cause it’s also meant as an inspiration to a certain companies we all know very well. Not that I don’t think they haven’t taught about it. 

So you could actually have one SFP/SFP+ interface serving all audio digital protocols by just changing SW 😀

 

The issue is that even if a small company developed this new way of communication, you would still need a converter to match up with old equipment. And the main question is of cause if it will result in better SQ. 
 

We will probably know more in 2 to 3 years. 
 

Your experiment seems very interesting. 

[jabbr]

2 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

Just trying to understand what may or may not be possible.
 

Of cause it’s also meant as an inspiration to a certain companies we all know very well. Not that I don’t think they haven’t taught about it. 

So you could actually have one SFP/SFP+ interface serving all audio digital protocols by just changing SW 😀

 

The issue is that even if a small company developed this new way of communication, you would still need a converter to match up with old equipment. And the main question is of cause if it will result in better SQ. 
 

We will probably know more in 2 to 3 years. 
 

Your experiment seems very interesting. 

 

Yes I am aware and correct. For me it would be an interface box that then distributed a fiberoptic DSD signal to each of N PowerDAC/speaker modules.

 

I suspect @Miska's Pulse & Fidelity is looking at this space and while I think its super interesting and there is a lot to be done, I've been waylayed by a different robotics project that is well also interesting ... so my prototype remains that... I did learn how to program the Zynq which was really fun...