Raspberry Pi I2S to SPDIF Hat

We are building 50 units in the next batch and will continue building until we see the demand slack off. The website will be back on for ordering again sometime next week. I apologize that it’s not exact because we don’t want to turn it on until we’re sure we can commit to, or get close to, a firm delivery time.

Michael

 

My 502DAC is mounted piggyback on a Pi 3/PiTouch assembly as shown on the attached photo. It is held by two screws and the HAT connector. Two questions:

1. Pi 3, PiTouch screen, and 502DAC are all powered by the same 5V LPS, drawing up to 3A. Would the 5V regulated output from the PI2AES be able to provide that much, or should I just remove the PI2AES jumper and power separately?
2. Would the same physical assembly work for the PI2AES?

 

The PI2AES supply can supply 5V at up to 4A.

The way you have the pi mounted will work just fine with AES.

Cheers,
Michael

 

The 502dac sounded better to me with the hat powered separately with an lps and stock psu powering the pi than an lps feeding the 502dac and it supplying power to the pi. Whether that would apply to the pi2aes or you I don’t know. Much later on my chinese lps spazzed out and fried the 5v input on my 502dac but the board still works (and sounds great) with the pi powering the hat. I’ve been waiting on the pi2aes to replace it but wanted to get the pi4 set up first.

 

Hi @Michael Kelly when is the next date for ordering the P2AES?

 

I received my pi 4 boards today (a 1G and a 2G). I plan on doing some testing next week as soon as I can figure out what software is ready to run. I will also test the pi 0 as requested.

One thing I wanted to make folks aware of is that because of the way we power the pi from our board, the whole nonsense about USB – C cables and proper classification is moot. You don’t need it as our board runs everything!

Cheers,
Michael

Sometime next week we will put more units in the store with a 2-3 week estimated delivery time.

Cheers,
Michael

 

As a DAC or as a digital source? If the latter, with which DAC? I use my 502DAC to supply AES to a Soekris dac1541. I've tried this DAC with a variety of other sources, and it seemed pretty resilient to source specifics.

 

BNC out to a Gungnir Multibit and a Theta DS Pro prime II. It wasn’t a night & day difference (“suddenly it was if a thick veil had been lifted”) but was apparent enough I kept it that way.

The Pi is designed to be very inexpensive, it might not be as noisy as a desktop pc for our purposes but that’s probably due more to lower clocks and no high power components than any particular care made with regards to audio.

 

Just upgraded my stand-alone Pi+502DAC+PiTouch+USB SSD to piCorePlayer 5.0.1. In my setup, I've disabled DHCP and set a fixed IP so that I can configure the system on my home network but then take it to work where it works disconnected. Should probably have not done it. pCP 5.0.1 seems less forgiving of detached use: 1) I needed to change one of the beta extras bootcodes to wait longer for the 2TB SSD to mount properly; 2) Jivelite fails to start up on boot sometimes, although a couple of reboots seems to kick it back to life. According to the pCP dev, Jivelite is not expected to work reliably disconnected, although it always worked perfectly that way before pCP 5.0.

 

I received my PI2AES with case yesterday, and set it up in one of my chains (Roon, Illuminate v3 PS feeding 2AES - powering HAT & Pi, AES out to Pavane DAC, feeding ZDS). Need a bunch more listening and testing before I comment with any specificity, but with a single high end PS initial impression is it seems to sit between my Metrum Ambre and a well-powered DigiOne Sig. Bottom line: it doesn't suck. Kudo's Michael.

One quick design comment; I wish you exposed a 2.5 or 2.1 PS connector that would make powering Pi cleaner. I understand I can use the micro-USB, but all of my better PS' and cables are 2.1 or 2.5.

 

I’m not sure what you mean about the 2.5 connector. Are you asking for a second 2.5 mm connector that just connects to the 5 V rail between AES and the pi?

I would think a 2.5 to micro USB adapter would achieve the same result. Something like this:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/2789

Michael

 

Yup, that adaptor would work, but a dedicated 2.5mm or 2.1mm port that mapped to the GPIO pins would sidestep any regulation, fuses, etc. It's certainly less safe vs. powering with the microUSB, but possibly better if you're using a dedicated PS like the LPS 1.2.

 

Understood. But it is not something we would do. Sorry!

Michael

 

Absolutely understand Michael.

 

Which being the better of the two?

 

Sorry - Ambre feeding Pavane via I2S is the best, the Sig was feeding Pavane via BNC was good, but not at Ambre level.

 

The Pavane I2S module uses an RJ45 with single ended (non-lvds) signals. You should be able to drive it from the PI2AES using an RJ45 flying lead adapter as mentioned previously. Are willing and/or able?

It would be ironic if this works since our PI2AES cost about the same as their I2S adapter!

Cheers,
Michael

 

I would love to know the answer to that. Seriously.

The Ambre is just so god damn expensive for what it is.

 

Yea, I suspect I'll get around to it for the experience.

 

I will also compare the I2S input to my Metrum Onyx. I have the I2S cable built and the Pi2AES assembled, but I found I don't have any DC 2.5 barrel connectors, only 2.1, so it will have to wait until I can get some parts for a power supply.

Just a note for case assembly. At first glance, it looks like the top and bottom are the same, but please note that the bottom has two slots on the SD card end and that end has an opening to access the SD card. I must not be very sharp today. It took me way to long to figure that out.