WORKING: Standalone AudigyDrive as standalone SPDIF Receiver

chipwizme · May 10, 2010, 12:45 PM

Hey,

I just got my Audigy 2 (ZS?) "livedrive" (model SB0250) working as a standalone receiver for both optical and coax SPDIF. The SB0250 has an AD_EXT input and a floppydrive power connector. I connected the floppy drive power connector to standard 5v/12v and on AD_EXT i connected the following pins:

*Pin 3 ("gnd") to Pin 4 (gnd)
*Pin 5 (SPDIF0_IN at card) to Pin 31 (SPDIF2_OUT at card)

Then I connected the "SPDIF IN" of the SB0250 (top left black RCA jack) to my computer's SPDIF coax output. I connected my headphones to the headphone jack of the SB0250 and turned the volume knob about halfway up. It autodetects and plays SPDIF input at 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 88.2kHz, 96kHz, SOMETIMES 176.4kHz, and SOMETIMES 192kHz sample rates. When I disconnect the "SPDIF IN" from the SB0250, connect a toslink to the "Optical In" on the SB0250, it also detects and plays up to 96kHz streams. I was not daring enough to try playing two streams at once, since I have a hunch that I left a MUX IC's select pin(s) floating. I connected pins 3 and 4 simply because pin 3 is tied to ground on my SB0350 (Audigy 2 ZS) but not on the SB0250 and samir's AD_EXT pinout lists it as ground. Since both pin 5 and pin 31 are buffered with a 74F125 (from what little tracing i could do with a $10 multimeter: i'm a poor college student), I did not feel the need to worry about voltage levels for spdif.

I tested using three sound output devices:

*SB0350 Audigy 2 ZS (using both channels the digital output jack and SPDIF2OUT on the AD_EXT)
*Intel High Definition Audio with Realtek ALC889A codec (using both the coax output on my motherboard and the toslink output on my motherboard)
*my MODDED SB0350 (same outputs as the other SB0350)

For reference, I did all this using alsa 1.0.23 on Debian GNU/Linux with kernel 2.6.34-rc6. When doing the testing with my modded card, I used alsa with my own patches. My modded card runs off of a 22.5792MHz crystal that i soldered in place of the stock 24.576MHz crystal. The modded alsa drivers simply tell the computer about this change and disable the pitch scaling in the EMU10k2.1 DSP (since I was too lazy to completely recalculate the pitch tables and all that).

Does anyone have a more complete idea of how the GPOs and GPIs of AD_EXT work to control the livedrive/audigydrive? Any improvements/suggestions/etc? EUGENE, PLEASE POST A MODDED kX DRIVER TO SUPPORT MY MODDED CARD

(I use windows 7 x64)

May 10, 2010, 12:45 PM	#1
chipwizme HardwareHeaven Newbie Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 11 Rep Power: 0	WORKING: Standalone AudigyDrive as standalone SPDIF Receiver Hey, I just got my Audigy 2 (ZS?) "livedrive" (model SB0250) working as a standalone receiver for both optical and coax SPDIF. The SB0250 has an AD_EXT input and a floppydrive power connector. I connected the floppy drive power connector to standard 5v/12v and on AD_EXT i connected the following pins: Pin 3 ("gnd") to Pin 4 (gnd) Pin 5 (SPDIF0_IN at card) to Pin 31 (SPDIF2_OUT at card) Then I connected the "SPDIF IN" of the SB0250 (top left black RCA jack) to my computer's SPDIF coax output. I connected my headphones to the headphone jack of the SB0250 and turned the volume knob about halfway up. It autodetects and plays SPDIF input at 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 88.2kHz, 96kHz, SOMETIMES 176.4kHz, and SOMETIMES 192kHz sample rates. When I disconnect the "SPDIF IN" from the SB0250, connect a toslink to the "Optical In" on the SB0250, it also detects and plays up to 96kHz streams. I was not daring enough to try playing two streams at once, since I have a hunch that I left a MUX IC's select pin(s) floating. I connected pins 3 and 4 simply because pin 3 is tied to ground on my SB0350 (Audigy 2 ZS) but not on the SB0250 and samir's AD_EXT pinout lists it as ground. Since both pin 5 and pin 31 are buffered with a 74F125 (from what little tracing i could do with a $10 multimeter: i'm a poor college student), I did not feel the need to worry about voltage levels for spdif. I tested using three sound output devices: SB0350 Audigy 2 ZS (using both channels the digital output jack and SPDIF2OUT on the AD_EXT) Intel High Definition Audio with Realtek ALC889A codec (using both the coax output on my motherboard and the toslink output on my motherboard) *my MODDED SB0350 (same outputs as the other SB0350) For reference, I did all this using alsa 1.0.23 on Debian GNU/Linux with kernel 2.6.34-rc6. When doing the testing with my modded card, I used alsa with my own patches. My modded card runs off of a 22.5792MHz crystal that i soldered in place of the stock 24.576MHz crystal. The modded alsa drivers simply tell the computer about this change and disable the pitch scaling in the EMU10k2.1 DSP (since I was too lazy to completely recalculate the pitch tables and all that). Does anyone have a more complete idea of how the GPOs and GPIs of AD_EXT work to control the livedrive/audigydrive? Any improvements/suggestions/etc? EUGENE, PLEASE POST A MODDED kX DRIVER TO SUPPORT MY MODDED CARD (I use windows 7 x64)