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Buffalo II - Assembly for the Electronically Bewildered.

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Just wondering if the WaveIO would take a stream from Squeezebox (LMS)
I don't want to divorce from Squeeze as we have many players, its our house system, we don't to TV so the squeeze is important.

Nice to see you here Carl, did you go straight into ALWSRs or try something else first?
I was toying with Fleas in the back of my mind as an upgrade on Tridents.

Tony
 
Don't think so, the USB out option for the squeezebox is a custom driver which I'm pretty sure would't ve compatible. Worth asking the coder in the squeeze forum and asking the wave io designer though. I'd do that if it was possible.
 
Might be an idea, can't see why it wouldn't work. Although I normally use my android to control my touch sometimes when to phone battery is low during a listening session I end up getting up and using the touch itself. Might be a problem for me is there was no physical decide close by to fall back on. Unless there is a way to get the touch to control squeeze player? My wife could continue to use it then.

Stefan
 
Stefan we synchronise all the players in our house so we can control the whole system from any player or interface. Just have to un-synchronise the Touch for HiRes files else LMS down samples the whole stream to the data rates fr the lowest player, in our case 16/44 for the squeeze radios. The Touch feeds the listening room. Listening room reads spare bedroom but its a bungalow so just another room really.
 
Bemused said:
Just wondering if the WaveIO would take a stream from Squeezebox (LMS)
I don't want to divorce from Squeeze as we have many players, its our house system, we don't to TV so the squeeze is important.

Nice to see you here Carl, did you go straight into ALWSRs or try something else first?
I was toying with Fleas in the back of my mind as an upgrade on Tridents.

Tony
Click to expand...

Hi Tony

I think that your first idea of feeding I2S from the SB touch via Teleporters sounds good.

I think that one of the guys on DIYAUDIO WAVEIO thread has hacked his and uses the Teleporter’s to hook up to his DAC.

Could be good to dip over and ask him to expand on how he did it as it would help you and other Touch users.:D

The SQ may be better that way also but I’ve not tried that so just a hunch.
I’m still on the old Duet and Boom with RipNAS server which I still enjoy.:cool:
 
Tony (Bemused) / shoom.

I'd be interested in this, too. I'll try to find the post about SB Touch and I2S.

And Tony (Suffolk). Great to hear that you managed to get good SQ through the WaveIO. I need to learn how to solder and get a few things out of the Way before I will start buying Buyffalo III, Paul Hynes and WaveIO stuff.

Best wishes,
Peter
 
Peter, go down the tip & get hold of an old computer motherboard, watch the tutorials on e-Bay & get a book on the subject, and spend a while soldering and desoldering components. I see you're interested in building a HackerNAP. It's a superb amplifier but it's quite a major undertaking for a novice so my advice is to gain plenty of confidence before taking that step.

I received my 317 power supply from ESR yesterday. They really are an excellent company; OK, you can't order from their website & you have to 'phone to place an order but the folk there are unfailingly helpful and they're super-efficient with delivery.

Anyway, with this new power supply in place the Wave IO board works perfectly on exterior power now. No dropouts so far this morning so fingers crossed.
 
Hey thanks for the links, nice to know someone has been there before.

I have not read yet as its a busy day today. Inlaws....
 
In an effort to fix one set of problems, I seem to have made things worse today.

I have a Buffalo II fed from a TPA MUX. They were connected via I2S consisting of 4 wires twisted together in a 14cm long bundle. This is longer than spec'd, so I rearranged things today and got the length down to 5cm, although the wires just run in parallel now. Various DC power runs had to be lengthened to accommodate the change, but nothing substantive was actually done.

While depth and bass are markedly better, there's now some grunge on both channels that's more pronounced when vocals get loud. No music = no grunge. It's almost like a microphonic issue. Different sources (Mac Mini vs. Oppo disc player) all have the same grunge. Changing the connection between MUX & BII from I2S to S/PDIF worsens the overall SQ but makes the grunge less noticeable.

Any suggestions for what might have gone wrong? I suspect the Buffalo II.
 
Read some of those threads about touch i2s before. Neither of them really point out how to get the master clock signal from the buffalo back to the touch with the teleporters in the signal chain. Not sure this would be possible? or how the dac would send the correct clock for the resolution of the stream. If anyone goes down this route i'd be very interested to hear how you fair.

Stefan
 
I don't really know what I am on about as usual here.
But why hold back, its the internet and I am an expert :D:D:D

But at the moment I 'think' I²S consists
A bit clock
A word clock
A data word.

Three line plus a ground, that’s it...

All data and clocks are from source, ie SPTouch
There is no need to get the master clock from the Buffalo back to the Touch, the I²S at the source announces what it is sending and when via its clocks, the bit clock is also dependant on the number of channels and sample rate, not sure how but I think it’s just a multiple.
The sender anounces what its sending and no syncrnisation is needed, it's jitter free. If the receiver loses track the process just crashes.

The bit clock rises once for each bit of data on the data line.

The word clock rises for left channel or right channel data identification.
I think it rises for right channel identification an goes low for left channel.
It sends one word for each channel in turn.

The data word is sent MSB first LSB last.
The MSB first which I think is referred to as left justified and is a nifty trick that means the sender and receiver don't need to know what the data precision is. Ie 16 bit, 32 bit etc.
Filling the data word from MSB first lets the receiver pad with zeros if it has more precision or ignore the last bits if it has less precision.

The order of fire for me seems to be.
1. Get some money as I have spent way toooo much recently.
2. Get a second hand Touch, as I don't want to risk taking the system down by buggering the Touch.
3. Get the cover off of the Touch and get it back on again without breaking it. I expect this to be quite hard.
4. Get a pair of Transporters.
5. Identify the I²S points in the touch, and wire out to the Transporter, interconnect the two Transporters with CAT6, wire the last Transporter to the Buffalo.
6. Configure all the configurables.
7. Sit back and enjoy.

Tony
 
Cheers Tony, I'm reasonably aufait with what the data line and clock signals entail, however a few of the i2s mods include the master clock so that you can have one expensive precision crystal, like that of the buffalo as master negating the need for the sounce device to use it's lower precision clock. Some of the threads I have read alude to the fact that getting a master clock singnal into the source often brings the biggest upgrade in sound. I guess my question is can the teleporters send a clock singnal one way while the data is going the other way? No manual make it a bit difficult!

This is all pie in the sky as I hav't got my buffalo back up and running yet :(

Stefan
 
Thanks Stefan, I see your a little further ahead on reserch than I.

Found the I2S bus specification here

I think section 4 is what you saying
In the I2S format, any device can act as the system master by
providing the necessary clock signals. A slave will usually derive its
internal clock signal from an external clock input. This means, taking
into account the propagation delays between master clock and the
data and/or word-select signals, that the total delay is simply the
sum of:
Click to expand...

I can see this is going to be hard going for me.
 
An interesting question Stefan! With the Teleporter you do have the option of setting any of the dip switches on each module to either send or receive so I guess what you're suggesting is possible.

With my WaveIO board I'm using the three connections Tony's mentioned but there is the option to also send the Wave master clock signal to the Buffalo & disable the Buffalo's clock by depowering it. This was suggested by someone on DIY Audio but I'm not convinced this'd be a good thing to do. Having just installed PH regs etc.

The grounding situation's rather confusing with I2S - The ground on the Wave board needs to connect to the Teleporter's signal ground & then via network cable to Buffalo, so you do need four connections.

I reckon I've got an earthing issue somewhere - every time something's switched on or off in the house there's a momentary glitch in the music. the Wave board, Teleporter & their power supplies are housed in an ABS box & not earthed. Russ from PFM's suggesting somewhere that this can cause the problem. Once I get the PH regulator I'll pop it all in a metal enclosure, plus I've ordered an IEC IMF filter device. Hopefully this'll fix it.
 
''An interesting question Stefan! With the Teleporter you do have the option of setting any of the dip switches on each module to either send or receive so I guess what you're suggesting is possible''.

Hi Tony (Suffolk)

Yes that’s my take on the Teleporters.

The dip switch can be used to send and receive data in either direction so you could have 3 I2S lines sending from the source and receiving at the DAC (SO BCLK, SCLK and DATA).

Then use the spare to send the MCLK the other way.:cool:

The grounding set up had me scratching my head for a while but it seems that the DATA line need a return path which is the reason for the I2S ground. The ground from the source is not connected to the DAC end though even with CAT6 which has a shield connection around the plug. The CAT5 socket on the Teleporter does not have the corresponding connecter so the grounds from sender to receiver are isolated from each other (less noise).

I may have understood that wrong so I’ll have a read up.;)

Good idea with the sheilded box though i still have the light fantastic drop out.:)

Hi Tony (B)

‘’There is no need to get the master clock from the Buffalo back to the Touch’’

Yes that’s how I understand it as it would require the XO’s from the Touch or Buffalo to be removed (it may get confused with all clocks feeding each other).

I’ve no SB Touch to try things out on so I’m going to be of little help in that respect.

BUT

For not too much more dosh than the Touch why not build a dedicated music PC.

My PC size wise is about the same width as a Cyrus shoe box half the depth and twice the high so no big space hog. :)

It’s fan less so very quiet in use and fun to play with player wise.:cool:

I’ve heard that the Mini MAC is also good in that regard.

Just a thought;)

For me I’d take the easiest option with the Touch (as usual) and just go for the minimum fuss and have I2S without the MCLK connection. Then if all goes well try syncing the SB to the Buffalo.

That’s just IMHO and others will think differently.
 
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