Computer Audio Blasphemy, nige tries Another SD Card Player

[jkeny]

OK, sorry if I hijacked your thread, Nige but I believe great sound shouldn't require the wearing of hair shirts.
Maybe talk of UI should be hived off into a separate thread?

[jkeny]

I was talking with Richard & the Taobao seller of the cased SD player seems not to be interested in supplying it non-stock (without trafo & 4495 DAC board) unless a min of 50 units.

It seems this ebay unit is supplied with remote control even though it's not mentioned or shown in the pics
Ebay auction/product number 122618274108

[nige2000]

OK, sorry if I hijacked your thread, Nige but I believe great sound shouldn't require the wearing of hair shirts.
Maybe talk of UI should be hived off into a separate thread?

dont mind at all,

with all the sweat and tears (lots of tears and sometimes blood) in extremest computer audio,
the mobo power solutions and clock replacements and inconvenient software
it always seemed we could have sound quality or usability but not both

this sd card player is so direct and simple i dont think theres much more to change besides the ui
theres probably not much going to go on here besides helping guys get setup, and them reporting how good it is

the only people left out is those with good commercial dacs that only take spdif or usb
maybe it be worth trialing one with a spdif output?

[Ken Moreland]

Although I haven't heard this player yet , I have heard enough about it to be happy to give it a try. I'm guessing it doesn't have any volume controls, it that correct? I'd prefer the Dac included as I don't think my Hugo is amenable to introduction of I2S, so, John ,if you are pulling together a purchase count me in , for the price it's worth a shot.

[jkeny]

this sd card player is so direct and simple i dont think theres much more to change besides the ui
theres probably not much going to go on here besides helping guys get setup, and them reporting how good it is

Sure, & mybe at that stage it would be time to start looking into improving the UI?

the only people left out is those with good commercial dacs that only take spdif or usb
maybe it be worth trialing one with a spdif output?

Yea, SPDIF output would be worth checking out & I have a pretty good offering for those with USB only input :)

[nige2000]

I was talking with Richard & the Taobao seller of the cased SD player seems not to be interested in supplying it non-stock (without trafo & 4495 DAC board) unless a min of 50 units.

It seems this ebay unit is supplied with remote control even though it's not mentioned or shown in the pics
Ebay auction/product number 122618274108

thats disappointing if they where 50$ a unit thats 2.5k plus shipping

id take a complete stock unit and butcher it if it comes to it
im pretty sure whatever we come up with will replace my audio pc

[jkeny]

Although I haven't heard this player yet , I have heard enough about it to be happy to give it a try. I'm guessing it doesn't have any volume controls, it that correct? I'd prefer the Dac included as I don't think my Hugo is amenable to introduction of I2S, so, John ,if you are pulling together a purchase count me in , for the price it's worth a shot.

Ken, the Hugo can accept SPDIF input, right? So the basic SD card player with add-on SPDIF output card rather than boxed version might be worth trying out for you?

I'm wondering if a tour of my version (a prototype) of a cased up SD card player with battery power & my Ciunas DAC board giving analogue output & a SPDIF output would be of interest or do people just want to pull the trigger on this $50 device from ebay, themselves?

To be honest, I think this card could be the base for a nice audiophile player - I have some ideas :)

[Ken Moreland]

Although I haven't heard this player yet , I have heard enough about it to be happy to give it a try. I'm guessing it doesn't have any volume controls, it that correct? I'd prefer the Dac included as I don't think my Hugo is amenable to introduction of I2S, so, John ,if you are pulling together a purchase count me in , for the price it's worth a shot.

Ken, the Hugo can accept SPDIF input, right? So the basic SD card player with add-on SPDIF output card rather than boxed version might be worth trying out for you?

I'm wondering if a tour of my cased up SD card player with battery power, my Ciunas DAC analogue output & SPDIF output would be of interest or do people just want to pull the trigger on this $50 device from ebay?

John, yes Hugo can accept SPDIF input so that would definitely be worth a listen. The price of the boxed version is worth whatever butchery it has to endure, either to use as a second string Dac or modify to SPDIF output.

[nige2000]

i wouldn't put any faith in that akm4495 dac been much good especially oob
the star of the show is the digital side

[randytsuch]

Guess I don't have a choice, but I'm still interested in the complete unit, depending on what kind of price we can get.

The guy probably already does high volume, so we may not get much of a break for a group buy, but doesn't hurt to ask.

On the ui front, I found that I didn't listen to music as much when I had my previous (now broken) sd card player.
It wasn't a conscious thing and there were other factors in my life going on at the time, but I would now attribute at least part of it to the ui of the sd card player, and that it was kind of a pain to use. Same reason my turntable is sitting on a shelf in my garage.

At least this has a remote, and I was just looking at the pics of the complete player, and made some rough measurements.
I think the screen is about 55x70, and would be readable from some distance away. So just the remote and this larger display will help with usability. Add a wifi sd card that you can wirelessly add and delete songs too, and that's a major improvement already.

For a different project, I had figured out how to use optocouplers to simulate a button push on a remote. The opto was connected to a esp8266 based board. If you're not familiar with them, esp's are basically an arduino with built in wifi. So there is also a very brute force approach that would use an opto for each switch, and some type of microcontroller to "push" buttons. But since we have ir, I don't think we'd need to resort to this. Just giving another option.

What we really need is a smart sw guy. I can write simple sw given enough time, but pretty sure this would be well beyond my capabilities.

Randy