Is I2S the best interface for digital audio?

[adolfo.a.aguiar]

It seems that the I2S technology is maturing to be used to connect a PC to a DAC.
Products like Pink Faun I2S Bridge ST and several I2S ready DACs have made this technology available now.
Anyone using it? How does it sound compared to USB and SPDIF?

[randytsuch]

No idea, but it's an interesting question.

My DAC uses an Amanero USB to I2S converter, which is popular in diy type dacs. In this type of setup, it would be fairly simple to try.

The catch is I2S is not intended to be transmitted over a cable. Twistedpearaudio makes a "teleporter", which you could use to convert from I2S to LVDS, and you can send LVDS over long distances in a impedance controlled cable, Ethernet for the teleporter. Unfortunately the card you referenced uses a HDMI connector for this. I don't know of anyone who makes a diy type HDMI based LVDS converter. I guess you could make a "custom" cable by starting with a HDMI cable, cutting one end, and grafting on an Ethernet connector to it.
So, your card, a custom cable and a teleporter connected to a suitable DAC should let you make music.

I would try it if it was cheaper, but not in the budget right now.

BTW, raspberry pi's generate I2S. At some point, I connected a Pi to my DAC via I2S with very short wires. I used a usb battery to power the pi. For the money, sounded pretty good. Not as good as my PC, but pretty good. I imagine using lifepo4 and a linear supply would improve things too.

Randy

[nige2000]

we talked about this before a while back

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2863

im not that keen i think i read somewhere that the pink faun converts pcie to usb then to i2s (think it was the xxhighend guy but dont quote me on that i'm not absolutely positive)
doing all this on mobo power cant be great

the popularity of usb to i2s devices has meant there has been a few good implementations like the amanero waveio diyinhk i2soverusb etc etc

ive done the i2s bbb and rpi thing
their i2s signal is not optimal
both of them needs some type of i2s reclocking

this experimentation shows that there can be good and bad i2s signals

its probably down to signal quality and integrity

the device with stellar signal quality we require probably doesn't exist

[nige2000]

after thought

i have a juli@ card in my regular desktop its detail is impressive considering
i also have a asus sound card with the pcm 179x chip in it and it make me cringe

anyway the juli@ is probably as good a pcie to i2s converter as any
there is much info on modding juli@ on the internet forums

[adolfo.a.aguiar]

we talked about this before a while back

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2863

im not that keen i think i read somewhere that the pink faun converts pcie to usb then to i2s (think it was the xxhighend guy but dont quote me on that i'm not absolutely positive)
doing all this on mobo power cant be great

the popularity of usb to i2s devices has meant there has been a few good implementations like the amanero waveio diyinhk i2soverusb etc etc

ive done the i2s bbb and rpi thing
their i2s signal is not optimal
both of them needs some type of i2s reclocking

this experimentation shows that there can be good and bad i2s signals

its probably down to signal quality and integrity

the device with stellar signal quality we require probably doesn't exist

Very interesting reading. If it is confirmed that the Pink Faun card converts pci-e->USB, it will be back to the drawing board.

[Sligolad]

Been looking at the I2SoverUSB card available here today and it looks like another good option.
http://jlsounds.com/index.html

[nige2000]

Been looking at the I2SoverUSB card available here today and it looks like another good option.
http://jlsounds.com/index.html

i have not tried this one yet only the oem version
the driver for either of these are not thesycon so one might have to get creative
id be interested in trying one of these at some stage

also the diyinhk xmos is also very good with an older thesycon driver

[adolfo.a.aguiar]

I'd like to try Raspberry PI 2 -> Audio-GD I2S output connector (http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/diy/I2Skits/I2SEN.htm) -> HDMI cable -> I2S DAC.
It seems to work. https://volumio.org/forum/raspberry-mus ... 41-10.html

[adolfo.a.aguiar]

Further internet reading showed possible flaws with the above config: PI has just one clock and generates jitter in 44.1, and it might truncate 24 to 16 bits because of DMA constraints.