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Multi-channel/surround Amp+ ???

renne

March 07, 2015 11:00

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A Raspberry with a display/projector, optical drive and a 6/8-channel amplifier would make a hell of a media-center.
Is anyone aware of plans or projects for a 6/8-channel DAC/amplifier unit?

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6 comments

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  HiFiBerry team March 07, 2015 16:04

  Hi Renne,
  
  the I2S port of the Raspberry Pi is limited to 2 channels. Therefore you should not expect a 6-8 channel amp for the RPi.
  
  Best regards
  Daniel
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  renne March 07, 2015 16:58

  Is there any other bus/interface on the RPi(2) which can handle the bandwidth for 6/8 LPCM channels in real-time reliably?
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  HiFiBerry team March 08, 2015 07:00

  No, there isn't. USB sound still has the same issues as the original Raspberry Pi already had (dropped packets resulting in sound problems).
  
  Best regards
  Daniel
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  renne April 18, 2015 09:49

  It's strange the Raspberry Pi Foundation doesn't get USB isochronous transfer working.
  
  Would real-time/jitter/latency improve by directly attaching three or four Toshiba TOTX1952 optical senders to the RPi's I/O-ports on a RPi Hat sending three or four discrete LPCM 2.0 streams to three or four audiophile stereo DACs? The SPDIF protocol logic would have to be computed in the ALSA stack or RPi firmware in real-time.
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  renne April 18, 2015 10:15

  There's a short description of the SPDIF protocol at Hamsterworks. There also seems to be a SPDIF emulation library on Github.
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  HiFiBerry team April 19, 2015 14:33

  If you really want low-jitter, SPDIF is not the best way. Also toggling GPIOs at high bitrates with low jitter isn't a simple thing. However if somebody want't to try - go on!
  
  Best regards
  Daniel