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Next gen Boss2
#1
Boss Dac is very popular with the RPI world. The combination of great sound quality with a good price has been the cornerstone of Boss.

However the design is quite old and we started searching for next gen Boss.

With many ICs on the market, we were looking for something that has I2S Master ability (we all know that RPI has jittery clocks) so our choices are ESS Sabre and Cirrus Logic. While I have worked in the past with ESS Sabre, our new choice is Cirrus Logic CS43198.

So yeah we went to work. Every single rail has a dedicated LDO. Every single rail has dedicated PI filters with correct dampening. There are 30 LDOs in total.

   

There is another advantage..

We discovered (when doing Rev Dac) that I2S noise influences the sound. The advantage of CS43198 is that it needs 1.8V logic instead of 3.3V. So every logic has to be buffered and sent. The obvious upside (disadvantage is cost) is that we used LDOs on every buffer so instead of having the RPI I2S / I2C noisy lines, we have a well controlled, very low noise signal from our buffers, feeding the DAC IC.

We expect to start selling them in about 2 months or less.

Tech specs:
- THD+N at -112 (1Khz)
- Jitter Test distortion  under 145db at full signal (no jitters reduction pll enabled on CS43198)
- Output 1.7V or 2.0 V software select
- Filters including NOS software select
- RPI4 optimized .
- $99 including DAC , remote and aluminium casing . RPI4 and psu sold separately
Reply
#2
(10-21-2020, 12:21 PM)allo.com Wrote: Boss Dac is very popular with the RPI world. The combination of great sound quality with a good price has been the cornerstone of Boss.

However the design is quite old and we started searching for next gen Boss.

With many ICs on the market, we were looking for something that has I2S Master ability (we all know that RPI has jittery clocks) so our choices are ESS Sabre and Cirrus Logic. While I have worked in the past with ESS Sabre, our new choice is Cirrus Logic CS43198.

So yeah we went to work. Every single rail has a dedicated LDO. Every single rail has dedicated PI filters with correct dampening. There are 30 LDOs in total.



There is another advantage..

We discovered (when doing Rev Dac) that I2S noise influences the sound. The advantage of CS43198 is that it needs 1.8V logic instead of 3.3V. So every logic has to be buffered and sent. The obvious upside (disadvantage is cost) is that we used LDOs on every buffer so instead of having the RPI I2S / I2C noisy lines, we have a well controlled, very low noise signal from our buffers, feeding the DAC IC.

We expect to start selling them in about 2 months or less.

Tech specs:
- THD+N at -112 (1Khz)
- Jitter  under 145db at full signal
- Output 1.7V or 2.0 V software select
- Filters including NOS software select
- RPI4 optimized .
- $99 including DAC , remote and aluminium casing . RPI4 and psu sold separately

This looks great. Will the Boss2 support native DSD or DoP?
Reply
#3
(10-21-2020, 12:21 PM)allo.com Wrote: Boss Dac is very popular with the RPI world. The combination of great sound quality with a good price has been the cornerstone of Boss.

However the design is quite old and we started searching for next gen Boss.

With many ICs on the market, we were looking for something that has I2S Master ability (we all know that RPI has jittery clocks) so our choices are ESS Sabre and Cirrus Logic. While I have worked in the past with ESS Sabre, our new choice is Cirrus Logic CS43198.

So yeah we went to work. Every single rail has a dedicated LDO. Every single rail has dedicated PI filters with correct dampening. There are 30 LDOs in total.



There is another advantage..

We discovered (when doing Rev Dac) that I2S noise influences the sound. The advantage of CS43198 is that it needs 1.8V logic instead of 3.3V. So every logic has to be buffered and sent. The obvious upside (disadvantage is cost) is that we used LDOs on every buffer so instead of having the RPI I2S / I2C noisy lines, we have a well controlled, very low noise signal from our buffers, feeding the DAC IC.

We expect to start selling them in about 2 months or less.

Tech specs:
- THD+N at -112 (1Khz)
- Jitter  under 145db at full signal
- Output 1.7V or 2.0 V software select
- Filters including NOS software select
- RPI4 optimized .
- $99 including DAC , remote and aluminium casing . RPI4 and psu sold separately

Hello,

is it available for preorder ? What about postage to France please ?

Thanks
Reply
#4
(10-21-2020, 04:19 PM)MikeyFresh Wrote: This looks great. Will the Boss2 support native DSD or DoP?

Hello, the answer to your question can be found here: https://www.cirrus.com/products/cs43198/
Reply
#5
(10-21-2020, 04:34 PM)romain Wrote:
(10-21-2020, 04:19 PM)MikeyFresh Wrote: This looks great. Will the Boss2 support native DSD or DoP?

Hello, the answer to your question can be found here: https://www.cirrus.com/products/cs43198/

This is an i2s dac and as such RPI can only send DOP.
Reply
#6
(10-21-2020, 04:34 PM)romain Wrote:
(10-21-2020, 04:19 PM)MikeyFresh Wrote: This looks great. Will the Boss2 support native DSD or DoP?

Hello, the answer to your question can be found here: https://www.cirrus.com/products/cs43198/

Thank you but I believe not necessarily according to previous comments on this and other fora, though I appreciate the IC itself is DSD capable. I think a specific driver for Linux would be necessary, no?
Reply
#7
(10-21-2020, 04:37 PM)allo.com Wrote:
(10-21-2020, 04:34 PM)romain Wrote:
(10-21-2020, 04:19 PM)MikeyFresh Wrote: This looks great. Will the Boss2 support native DSD or DoP?

Hello, the answer to your question can be found here: https://www.cirrus.com/products/cs43198/

This is an i2s dac and as such RPI can only send DOP.

Will there be a driver required for this that allows DoP?
Reply
#8
Yes a new driver is needed..we are in the process of submitting to Rasbian our driver.
Reply
#9
Will you also be conversing with Rasbian (Raspberry Pi Os...RPi Foundation) about the woeful support for the Piano 2.1/Kali and fixing that before releasing any new hardware ?

http://moodeaudio.org/forum/showthread.p...7#pid26307

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic...-moode-66/

since July....no fix...:-(
----------
bob
Reply
#10
Drone , we are aware that Piano 2.1 has an issue with new kernel, but its an issue from Rasbian not from us. We are talking to them but we cannot advance the issue faster than Rasbian people can..but please rest assured that we are working on it. ( or rather we push the people that have to fix it)
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