networking - my audio data highway

Years back I mentioned that the network and associated components do have quite an impact on your audio performance. 
Meanwhile this became common knowledge in - let's call it - audiophile minded circles. 

As usual, I prefer reasonably (priced) highest performance solutions. 
Usually a healthy mix of DIY efforts and commercial stuff gets me there. 

Today I'd like to introduce my "currently" preferred "audio" streaming network solution.







Raspberry PI - I2S-HATs @ 384k

Today I'd like to share how to introduce 352k8/384k upsampling 
by running LogitechMediaServer as server and squeezelite as a client.

This post, from a hardware perspective,  pretty much relates to my 

RPI I2S HAT DAC projects I've been running over at DIY-Audio.

Some DACs (TI PCM51xx family) have shown a slightly improved performance 

while running upsampled material. That's the main reason for writing all this up. 





Linux USB Audio - Trouble Shooting

(Latest update: Mar-6-2022)

USB audio interfaces are pretty much commodity products nowadays. Usually these are plug'n play
on whatever rather recent system.

In the early days people were facing a lot of hiccups with USB audio. This situation has greatly improved over the last 10 years though.

However. From time to time you still see discussions popping up about this or that issue related to USB-audio. 

The silent death...

(Latest Update: Jun/2020)

Does it make U feel uneasy ( once in a while ) of not being in control of something? 
Have you ever experienced that such an uneasy feeling grows on you with time?

OR... 

RU the type of person who takes it easy  -  "What I don't know, I don't care to know..." ?  


Whatever type of person you're considering yourself to be, I'd suggest to spend 10 minutes to find out what the heck this guy is talking about. 



Ever heard about Full Digital Amplifiers ??

(Latest update:  Jul-25-2021)


Full Digital Amps (FDAs) sometimes also called Power DACs , Direct Digital Amps or All Digital Amps!


No !?!? Never heard about them?


...the end of separate  DAC + AMP audio systems is near!!! ;)


That's what I thought when first publishing this article in 2012 after playing around with this breed.

I then wrote: "For those of you who got tired chasing all kind of DACs or amplifiers (I did), and those who've read the 1000th review of another miracle DAC (I did), or those of you who got more confused then enlightened with the endless number of DACs of choice out there (I did again), or those who look for a very small, cost efficient and still great sounding system ... 

Jee - just figured -  I'm talking about myself..  ;)

And now I am realizing after more than 9 years further down the road not much has changed.
After abandoning this FDA project I slipped back into old habits, chasing DACs and amps. 

Update: However. Finally. Now in 2021 we find  new developments. SMSL recently launched a new FDA. The VMV A2 FDA. A beast. Here is the review. I havn't tested it myself. But it seems to be an interesting product. 1k for an SMSL product. I do think they realized themselve what they built there.
They might even be afraid of cannibalizing their own DAC/amp product lines. Anyhow. You should continue to read this article to get some more background info about these kind of DACs.

Resampling - If you can't avoid it...

(Latest update: 2021-Dec-02)

Introduction

I have recently delved into the topic of audio data resampling on multiple occasions. It seems that it is an area that cannot be overlooked for various reasons.

In my particular situation, my hardware setup (DAC) recommended experimenting with resampled data in order to potentially enhance overall performance.

During my online research, I came across a plethora of fragmented and incomplete information. It is evident that a significant portion of the available resources have a marketing bias. Additionally, there are numerous conflicting opinions regarding the most effective approach to handling this matter.

In this article, I aim to address specific elements, including the concepts of resampling, upsampling/downsampling, and oversampling. Additionally, I will explore the reasons behind the utilization of resampling, as well as the factors and targets related to quality. Furthermore, I will delve into the tools and applications involved in this process, particularly focusing on the implementation on LogitechMediaServer. Moreover, I will discuss the significance of offline resampling and provide illustrative examples. Now, let us commence our exploration.