The ADAU1442 from Analog Devices is a very interesting chip. It is powerful enough for many audio processing tasks and not too expensive. However DIYers don’t use it very often. Why? There are some problems:
- The chip comes in 100-lead TQFP package and is not easy to solder.
- External DACs and ADCs are needed to add analog audio – the chip itself is purely digital and has no analog input and outputs
- The Analog prototyping module costs more then 600$ which is too expensive for most DIY tests
- There are not many DIYers that think they can program a DSP by themself.
The last problem is not a big problem, because Analog provide the Sigma Studio IDE that allows to create all kinds of digital filters and creates the DSP software for you.
Why not fix the other issues? We’re thinking about a prototyping board for the ADAU1442. It would include
- the DSP chip,
- some analog inputs and outputs (not sure about this, because it will consume a lot of space on the PCB),
- a power supply,
- an I2S interface to add external I2S devices (even a Raspberry Pi might be an option),
- an interface for a microcontroller, and
- pin headers to put it on a breadboard
What do you think? Would you like this kind of board?
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Hi Daniel,
there is a lot of information about it – that will be a good base. I feel always a little bit funny tweeking digital hardware and DAC interfaces for lowest jitter but using DSP and other stuff generously without thinking about.
But – if it’s possible to configure the ADAU in slave mode the connected DAC will set the standards :-) Additionally a simple but high quality reclocking circuit should be of interest.
Georg
The clock of the ADAU1442 is flexible. You can use an external clock source, but can also use the chip as a clock source for other circuits. Having a high-quality low-jitter clock would be a very nice thing, however, for the prototyping PCB the options will be limited, to keep it simple.
The ADAU1442/1446 also have an integrated asynchronous sample rate converter that accepts different clocks on different digital inputs and output. I don’t know how good the quality of the ASRC is, but it is a features that makes prototyping very easy. You just configure the chip to accept or provide the clocks that you need.
I just generated a breadboardable PCB Breakout for this chip. https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/YgXyR8oX If there is any interest you can order it from them.
Hello J. Kha, I order some number of this boards. Can you send my a schematic??
Hi, nice work. I orderd 3pcs. Can you provide the schematic pls?