Computer Audio Blasphemy, nige tries Another SD Card Player

[jkeny]

Actually, now that I'm thinking my way back into this, AmplitudJS is NOT really suitable as what we want from this control program is an ability to scroll through our library of audio files on disk, network or wherever & select one (or more) for playing which then will send this/these files to the SD card in the SD player, via WiFi & be able to use Bluetooth to have some simple level of control of playback - start/stop/pause/next/previous.

AmplitudeJS doesn't really have any music library functionality

So, I wonder if I'm approaching this from the wrong direction?

Maybe all that's needed is to upload audio files (with no metadata?) & correct folder structure to SD card (Flashair cards are 32Gb or 64Gb).

Then use an app on PC/phone/whatever which has the map of the SD card folder structure & navigating through this app send the appropriate bluetooth commands to the SD player to emulate the buttons on the SD player - select next/previous folder; select next/previous file; play/stop/pause? So essentially the app shows the music library, allows navigating through it & when play of a file is selected the music is played on the SD card player from the SD card because the navigation commands are sent via bluetooth to SD player & the bluetooth receiver in SD player electrically emulates the SD player buttons up/down/play stop

This may be more suitable? It's another web-based open-source app with the following characteristics:
- open source GPL license & runs on Win, Linux, Android
- it seems to offer the ability to play music files from a remote server - the SD card WiFi functionality acts as a server
- can edit/create API so maybe this can be the route for making the app send out bluetooth commands?

[jkeny]

Hi John,

No, I never got to the bottom of why that happened - it wasn't like I shorted something or an obvious muck up.

If your card i snow inoperable, care to donate it for testing - maybe can test what's going on electrically with button press?

I don't know about the loading into memory bit - the resident coder here reckons that the memory chip only holds the code which gives the MCU its instructions. Its more likely that the file is read then sequentially from the SD card? That would make sense with larger hi res files too.

Maybe but looking at the board, that big ISSI chip is memory (when I looked into it before, I believe it was MBs in size) & too big for storing code? There's an 8 leg IC that seems to be for program storage? I don't know what other function that large memory chip could perform other than bulk copy of file being played into memory & playback from there?

The other thing that is now apparent that might influence the flashair thinking is that SLC cards sound significantly better than MLC

I haven't heard the SLC card playback - is it that significant an uplift in sound?

..... i think we got here as far as writing arduino code with an ESP8266 to send files from a laptop to the flashair card and tell it to play. I think that was where we stopped though.

Yea, I saw that -progress seemed to stop because the player was judged as flaky as it wouldn't read some cards; image metatdata on files was causing the playback to screech?

But did we ever figure how it would work if we got the IR EP826 to work? We would have to use a IR controller & be close enough to the small SD player's screen to be able to see where we are navigating & what we want to play?

I'm more interested in remote control using PC/phone without needing line of sight device - also a good interface on the PC/phone control device would be a big benefit - no need to squint to see SD player screen

FYI Pearse has a new gizmo with a bluetooth remote that looks very sexy and uses an SD card player. Might be worth looking at that rather than reinventing the wheel. I don't think I have the appetite!! We also put in a USB XMOS receiver into the dac builds so we always have that to use as well. Some are using daphile or other PC base with remote control to play....

I'll have a look, thanks

[jkeny]

Found Seeteeyou's post linking to Taobao SD players & they look pretty much like what I was talking about - first one uses bluetooth (small bluetooth board) to connect with remote & second one uses WiFi (small WiFi board)

Remote looks pretty awful. I wonder did the developer consider the next step remote control via BT or WiFi with phone/computer & far better UI? Seller is usually NOT the developer.

PS: Ah I see in a later version he suggested that phone/desktop can be used to access/control SD player

Pearse ordered the WiFi one - has it arrived yet?
Interested in how it sounds

[Fran]

Pearse has it, bu I don't know if he's got to listen yet - he had it here on Saturday but we didn't get to listen

[jkeny]

Great, he got it, thanks for heads up - I'm sure he'll post when he is less busy & has some info?

[Fran]

The SLC cards give quite a good lift in SQ - enough to make me buy one!! You are more than welcome to the dead card, I think I measured the push buttons as just sending a high or low TTL signal. Also, Pearse has an annotated diagram of the card with pinouts marked. Very handy to print out at A3 and have it as a reference.

Whats availability like on those cards now?

[tapatrick]

I have a some of these and they are worth the cost. Don’t seem to like being filled up though.
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre ... 0939143730


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[tapatrick]

I have a some of these and they are worth the cost. Don’t seem to like being filled up though.
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre ... 0939143730


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[seeteeyou]

The same dude already made this Bluetooth Audio (i.e. aptX HD / LDAC = lossy compression) to I2S interface so that's kinda close enough, though he's keeping the costs down by omitting the SD card player part

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=588775686162

And then he also made this flavor with Bluetooth Audio + SD card player + DAC + batteries like a month ago

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=610424235375

Obviously a remote control like that would turn some people off for obvious reasons, though at the very least we're aware that he's able to write the codes and stuff. In other words, just turn the Bluetooth Audio part into this stuff and then lose the DAC / batteries

http://bcrcs.sourceforge.net
https://sourceforge.net/projects/bcrcs/files/

[Fran]

That second one "final fire F2" is very like Pearse' one, but his didn't have the battery and used a hdmi output for I2S...