I2S DAC

npejcic

Hello,

First, thank you for great OS and GUI

Do you plan to include I2S play device in your OS.
I have I2S DAC board which is connected to P5 GPIO port on Raspberry PI, so I need OS to support this.
Information from last days is: I2S library is included in new 3.10 Raspy official foundation's kernel.

Thank you.

BR,
Nebojsa

ACX

Hello npejcic, I'm glad you like our work

Yes, it's in our plans to Include I2S DAC support in the future. Which board do you own? We were interested to try HiFiBerry which looks very promising.

npejcic

Yes, HiFiBerry is good compromise for best sound vs price

I made DAC board myself also based on PCM5102A DAC chip (this DAC have good feature, can genarate MCLK inside of it) and we don't need to use external +-Vsupp for OP on output, this simplify electronic design. In difference of HiFiBery on our board we also have LCD/Buttons connectors.

After few months of listening this small board I must say that solution is very promising.

Picture of our device:

: RaspyI2SKompletSmall.jpg (84.53 KiB) Viewed 16426 times

This board is made for local DIY audio community in Serbia

If you want to implement full function of this device DAC+LCD+BUTTONS I can help in testing purposes, or something else in hardware domain.

P.S. I also tested couple of another DACs (WM8740, WM8727, ES9023, AK4396) with our PIC32 based MCLK generator for best HiFi sound, but this device not-yet ready for publish.

ACX

Your board is very interesting too! I personally think that I2S is the way to go on the Raspberry Pi, leaving behind its well-known limitations of the shared Ethernet/USB bus. You are going in the right direction with your work, and we are are interested in supporting I2S DACs in future releases.

Bones13

Or better to just change to the Beagle Bone Black for I2S?

I have a rPi, but they are not that expensive.

ACX

The BeagleBone Black is also very interesting because it offers the possibility to develop specific capes (here some examples). I also like that it's fully open source, as entirely built with open hardware.

npejcic

I think that if you want to use Beagle Bone Black you must use USB DAC or BEAGLEBONE AUDIO CAPE for audio out.
Raspberry Pi and I2S board deliver very good sound quality, small size and price is lower than AUDIO Cape. Material cost for I2S HiFiBerry or my I2S board is about 20 Euros.
Integration of I2S driver in Raspberry OS is not very hard. I already use Raspbian and RaspyFi with kernel patch for I2S. Work great.

I use LAN NAS for file sharing, web radio and sometime use USB flash for file storing. I never had glitch or disturb in playing sound. Sometimes only in web radio but rarely, and that is consequence in internet connection not a Raspberry itself.
So I think that I2S module is best solution for Raspberry.

Beffore use PCM5102A dac chip, approach for made this IS2 board is not easy task, because it's very hard to generate good MCLK signal and synchronise it with rest I2S signals from Raspberry board. Raspberry Pi don't have MCLK onboard. So it complicate hardware and price must go higher. Now it's easy task, and sound good with PCM5102A.

If you have external DAC which have SPDIF than Cubox-i is also very good solution.

ACX

npejcic wroteSo I think that I2S module is best solution for Raspberry.

As I said before, I agree with you about that.

About BeagleBone Black, is developing an I2S DAC cape really different from the work you did on Raspberry Pi? From your experience can you say it can be replied at almost the same cost on BB?

npejcic

I never have Beagle Bone Black, but after short research I think that SAME hardware can be used on BBB. Only cosmetic change is needed, because PCB footprint is not the same (pinout, connectors etc...).

ACX

npejcic wroteI never have Beagle Bone Black, but after short research I think that SAME hardware can be used on BBB. Only cosmetic change is needed, because PCB footprint is not the same (pinout, connectors etc...).

That's a very good news... Are you going to consider the challenge in the future?

npejcic

Challenge, yes

Probably I will develop this small board also for BBB.
Now is major problem that I can't find where to buy BBB. All distributors "out of stock"

Bones13

My intention would be to get the rPi to output I2S directly to the DAC I am about to build, that has a direct I2S input on the board. Initially, I will be using a USB-I2S converter board (Wave I/O), which is sold with the DDDac kit, but getting I2S directly out of a networked rPi using some nice audiophile software with iOS remote is a goal to try. Currently I use a small PC feeding my current DAC. I use JRiver and JRemote, and have similar functionality, apart from having the local music source, instead of NAS.

I am confused about having I2S directly out of the rPi though. Does there need to be an external clock circuit? Or is it just the code to tell the output pin how to behave?

curryman

I'd be also very interested in I2S support. I am currently running my ES9023 based DAC ([url]http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/232003-build-thread-es9023-jg-buffer-boards-betatest.html] curryman DAC thread on DIYaudio[/url]) with the raspberry Pi using a modified RaspyFi distri quite similar to Hifiberry. The ES9023 also is able to run asynchronous using its own (low Jitter) MCLK just like the PCM5102.

I'd be very happy to test the I2S enabled version of rune audio

If there is any tutorial how to modify the kernel I could also try, however I am quite a noob regarding this platform and Linux

regards, Daniel

npejcic

Bones13 wrote I am confused about having I2S directly out of the rPi though. Does there need to be an external clock circuit? Or is it just the code to tell the output pin how to behave?

Unfortunately Rpy don't have MCLK (I have doubt that it will ever have). So, you must use external MCLK. Other 3 signals you can use directly from RPy P5 connector.

npejcic

curryman wroteThe ES9023 also is able to run asynchronous using its own (low Jitter) MCLK just like the PCM5102.

No. ES9023 don't have internal MCLK clock generator like PCM5102. You must use external clock. It may be simple XTAL oscilator but so if you want to listen up-to 192kHz sample rate sounds, you must use more than 36.864000MHz external master clock.

cgraf

Hi
Just ordered the HifiBerry Board which will arrive in two weeks. Should be a nice combination with the raspberry pi...
I am glad to test if the i2s port ist supported. Will test with Flac and 3 different DAC's...

Best regards

Christoph (who has also Cubieboard 1+2, plus the cubox-i2 ultra)

hifiberry

Hi Christoph,

the Digi board will be available about mid of february. This might be a bit longer than 2 weeks. But everything looks good at the moment, therefore I don't expect big delays in our launch.

Best regards
Daniel

jogi

Hi all here,

i have got a hifiberry DAC from Daniel in december and it worked very well in my RaspyFi installation with the rPi-Update described. But then i discovered the runeaudio implementation. Because it is based on Archlinux and i tried Archlinux before in all my computers and its for me the best Linux distro ever, i wanted to have the runeaudio immediately.

Unfortunately the I2S-support is missing so far.

I decided to get it for my own and followed the kernel compilation guide on "http://elinux.org/RPi_Kernel_Compilation".
I downloaded the source rpi-3.12-y and activated the appropriate kernel modules.

It was not a short way until i succeded in getting the hifiberry work, but finally it did.
When the kernel is changed the problem is that i dont know in which script i should load the modules.
I placed a file "/etc/modules-load.d/rasperrypi.conf" to load the modules

.....
snd_soc_bcm2708_i2s
snd_pcm_dmaengine
snd_soc_pcm5102a
snd_soc_hifiberry_dac

But there the load time is to early and the modules don't load properly.
When i do the modules load after the boot manually it loads correct and voila the hifiberry works.

Greets

Juergen

P.S.: to Daniel (hifiberry) : the hifiberry sounds very good even with the normal rpi cheapy psu.

Thak

Hi!

Could you post a "how to" or a tuto, please? I also have an HiFiBerry that i would like to use with Runeaudio

(for now i use it with picoreplayer until runeaudio become compatible)

Thanks in advance!

curryman

npejcic wrote
curryman wroteThe ES9023 also is able to run asynchronous using its own (low Jitter) MCLK just like the PCM5102.
No. ES9023 don't have internal MCLK clock generator like PCM5102. You must use external clock. It may be simple XTAL oscilator but so if you want to listen up-to 192kHz sample rate sounds, you must use more than 36.864000MHz external master clock.

The ES9023 indeed does not have a pll build in which can generate the MCLK from the BCK but the DAC I was referring to (curryman DAC) has its own low jitter XO (50MHz) onboard. I'd also use this mode (local low jitter MCLK asynchronous to the BCK) for the PCM5102, however did not compare both versions (PLL vs. local asynchronous MCLK).

looking forward to the rune audio release with I2S support included

kind regards, Daniel