[mad-user] EgoSys U24

[Saboteur]

I don't know if this is inappropriate for the mailing list but since I'm
not affiliated w/ the company I think it's a good service for the MAD
users. I just bought this little gizmo and am currently testing it w/
the latest MAD plugin and the out_wav from http://www.blorp.com/~peter/
it works like a charm w/ 24bit output and the sound is awesome. it also
comes w/ the ASIO low-latency USB audio driver from www.usbaudio.com .
I can't wait to connect it to my headphone amp at home and try it w/ my
Grados :-))
for all of you in northern america you can use the coupon at
www.tracertek.com . for more info
http://egosys.net/1-pro/eng/product/u24/u24.html

ciao,

g.


Waveterminal U2A 24 bit USB Sound Module Now Shipping.
There has been quite a bit of pent up demand for this product. It was
initially scheduled to ship in January and much like all engineers, they
missed by just a tiny bit. But the wait is certainly worth it. This
high quality USB device will deliver the great USB portable audio at
only $239. We had advertised this unit at $219 before we knew the real
pricing, so as a special bonus to our newsletter readers, you can now
order this product for $20 off at $219 by simply going to our store by
July 1, 2002 and using this coupon when you place the order.

The U2A is at http://store.yahoo.com/tracertek/wavu24comsoo.html and the
coupon number is "newsu2a101".

[Unorthodox Behaviour]

Very good card but quite expensive. I just discovered
OPTOplay in http://www.audiotrak.net/eng/index.html

The web page says: "suggested US retail price (net):
$69.00 US" which is equivalent to 71.5 euros...

All I can say is "whoa!!!" (now rushing to search
online shops!!!)

If any MAD-user knows an even cheaper 24 bit solution,
please inform us - it seems that these new USB devices
are the future of digital audio "cards". I expect that
costs for these gadgets will reduce dramatically since
there is no PCI bridge chip involved, no big PCB etc -
just the DSP chip, audio stream to serial data
converters and plastic parts.

UB

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience
http://launch.yahoo.com

[john cooper]

Post by Unorthodox Behaviour
Very good card but quite expensive. I just discovered
OPTOplay in http://www.audiotrak.net/eng/index.html

Some of these USB audio dongles seem to have rather substandard
codecs. Particularly the Philips uda1331 chipset has rather
high distortion at low scale range.

The Burr Brown/TI PCM2702 looks quite a bit cleaner but
it only renders 16 bits and is just a DAC. Still, a really
nice package solution.

Post by Unorthodox Behaviour
If any MAD-user knows an even cheaper 24 bit solution,
please inform us - it seems that these new USB devices
are the future of digital audio "cards". I expect that
costs for these gadgets will reduce dramatically since
there is no PCI bridge chip involved, no big PCB etc -
just the DSP chip, audio stream to serial data
converters and plastic parts.

Maybe at some point, but I haven't found integrated devices
which generate/accept SPDIF data. Thus I suspect devices
like the OPTOplay are a vendor engineered solution and not
a carbon copy implementation of a chip vendor app note.

With the proliferation of low cost USB devices, it will be
interesting to see whether isochronous USB will become more
of an audio interconnect 'standard' compared to more
specialized interfaces such as SPDIF, etc.. The PCM2702 is
under $5/unit in production quantity. I can believe a $10/unit
BOM cost is possible. I have not seen SPDIF solutions even get
close to this.

-john

[Unorthodox Behaviour]

Post by Unorthodox Behaviour
Very good card but quite expensive. I just

discovered OPTOplay in
http://www.audiotrak.net/eng/index.html

This optoplay is based on the chip AKM AK4353, see
http://www.asahi-kasei.co.jp/akm/usa/product/ak4353/ak4353.html

Asahi-Kasei seems to produce a wide range of chips
that might be interesting. Of course I don't expect
them to have the quality of e.g. a Crystal DSP, but
they may still be interesting.

They produce evaluation boards for all their chips and
I mailed them asking details on the availability and
pricing of them. If they send me one for free (many
chip manufacturers do) then I'll have a first hand
experience...

It's too bad audio soundcard tech reports and tests
are limited to electrical performance. It would be
nice to know which 24/96 cards have a *musical* sound
(which means closer to analog !) and which not.

UB

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience
http://launch.yahoo.com

[john cooper]

Post by Unorthodox Behaviour
This optoplay is based on the chip AKM AK4353, see
http://www.asahi-kasei.co.jp/akm/usa/product/ak4353/ak4353.html

This is simply a DAC, and a low end one at that.

Post by Unorthodox Behaviour
Asahi-Kasei seems to produce a wide range of chips
that might be interesting. Of course I don't expect
them to have the quality of e.g. a Crystal DSP, but
they may still be interesting.

TI/Burr Brown, Analog Devices, and others produce similar
DACs. The issue is you need to feed these DACs bit-serial
16/24/32-bit data synchronized to a frame clock running at
the associated sampling frequency.

Post by Unorthodox Behaviour
They produce evaluation boards for all their chips and
I mailed them asking details on the availability and
pricing of them. If they send me one for free (many
chip manufacturers do) then I'll have a first hand
experience...

I'm afraid the eval board wont give you more than a
convenient way to get serial data into the DAC. You
still need to have a way to create the audio serial data
and I2C control from a USB isochronous stream. These are
completely different universes and conversion is non-trivial.

You might investigate Philips and TI for more integrated
USB to audio conversion solutions.