Home Computer Audio Asylum

Music servers and other computer based digital audio technologies.

OK, I'll bite

Some of the things I see:

+ No mainboard full of ununsed connectors. Each open mainboard connector is potentially another entry/exit point for noise. This also keeps the size small, which helps with noise.

+ Use of minimum necessary components, and absence of all the unused features you would get with a general purpose single board computer. There's a daughter card with the CPU, memory, and regulators. And a removable wifi module. On the main board there's an Ethernet controller, a USB controller, a small microcontroller, clocks, and drivers for the digital outputs. That's about it; just enough for the job and without all of the typical extra stuff that might tax the CPU, power supplies, and/or add noise.

+ Separate dedicated clocks for USB outputs and digital audio (AES & S/PDIF) outputs.

+ Both the AES/EBU and S/PDIF outputs are transformer coupled. Better than tying the S/PDIF shield to signal ground. And the transformer used is a Murata DA101 which should be better than those found on typical sound card outputs at higher data rates due to higher bandwidth.

+ Audio DSP looks custom, implemented on a microcontroller.

+ Looks like some extra regulation stages in there for low noise power to key components

+ Buffers at the USB outputs

But there are a couple of things I'm not so thrilled about:

- Wifi. There's probably a lot of people who demand it, but I'd rather it wasn't there. It looks like the wifi card is removable though.

- Looks like a plastic case. Shouldn't this be shielded?


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  • OK, I'll bite - Dave_K 16:30:32 10/17/14 (0)

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