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A Thread Dedicated to Cirrus Logic CS43131

Just received my SMSL PL100. Very nice size, can confirm that it's mechanically quiet.
5v / 2A in, the only thing missing is a charger. The one thing I would like to have fixed with a firmware update is that the display would turn completely off when the unit is off. Display is some sort of LCD
In fact, I recommend that you use a 5.2V 2.4A charger. Some 5V2A chargers cannot provide enough power.
 
In fact, I recommend that you use a 5.2V 2.4A charger. Some 5V2A chargers cannot provide enough power.
OK, is there a maximum ampere for this thing? I noticed that some SMSL DAC units are not supposed to use more than 2A

Example: SMSL B200, "Power Supply:
"The SMSL B200 uses a 5V power supply, which can also serve as a USB input. It is strictly forbidden to use a charger exceeding 5V 2A to power the device."

PS200 has a warning against using fast chargers as well
 
OK, is there a maximum ampere for this thing? I noticed that some SMSL DAC units are not supposed to use more than 2A

Example: SMSL B200, "Power Supply:
"The SMSL B200 uses a 5V power supply, which can also serve as a USB input. It is strictly forbidden to use a charger exceeding 5V 2A to power the device."

PS200 has a warning against using fast chargers as well
I tried using a high-current charger, which did not damage the machine, but it still did not work. I guess PL100 cannot recognize the fast charger protocol, so even if you use a fast charger, the charger only outputs 5V1A.
 
I already own the JCally JM20-Pro, #1 on the list, and confirmed it does work with 'Walk Play'. To learn a little more about these "obscure" chips, and for little money, I blindly ordered a few “random” dongles/cables on Amazon & AliExpress, with the same wild assumption that they could be based upon these 'Walk Play' compatible TTGK modules...
OT... A short :rolleyes: follow-up on what I learned about these TTGK modules.
  • The random Amazon AB229D dongles are TTGK's. But Walk Play is not enabled. Either TTGK's indication of Walk Play support in their datasheets is wrong... or, more likely, they have different FW's, customizing the various features enabled/disabled for each OEM.
  • The "HI-MAX" dongles are definitely Walk Play-enabled. The PEQ feature works fine. This is built around a CB1200AU SoC. I have several of these dongles, ordered as "add-on" to get free shipping from AliExpress. They are incredibly cheap ($3-6) "feature-rich" dongles: even if the performances are not top notch, they are certainly good enough to be left permanently attached to cheap IEMs, correcting/customizing them to one's preferences (PEQ).
  • I also confirmed that the Moondrop Quarks 2 DSP appears to use that same CB1200AU chip and is Walk Play enabled: you do get 8x PEQ filters through Walk Play... whereas, strangely enough, Moondrop's own app--the app used to set PEQ in FreeDSP, CDSP, MAY, Dusk-Crinacle, Chu-II, etc.--completely ignores Quarks 2 DSP. OTH, the OG Quarks DSP (not very common, but I have one) is not Walk Play enabled. The 'TTGK Station' app reported a FW update available for OG Quarks DSP, but I was not able to update it.
  • Related to the CB1200AU chip... this chip and the CB5100 used on JM20-Pro are marked "CBHT". I noted that one of TTGK current modules, the DAPD208A-CC, has a datasheet with a CBHT name:
  • 1736658914182.png
  • So, now I wonder if TTGK and CBHT-Audio (and Bestechnic?) are one and the same company...
  • The JCally TC08-Pro & TC20 cables are not Walk Play enabled. Not sure if they are using TTGK modules either, as the USB descriptors only report Bestechnic / BES3001-SP.
  • The KZ AM01 dongle is a TTGK module, but is not Walk Play enabled either. It is most likely built around a BESxxx DAC + MAX97220 opamp.
  • I also got a TTGK TT39518F01-Pro module: CB5100 + dual CS43198. See the JM20 thread for more details.
Now, scrambling to be back on topic and talk about the CS43131 chip... :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

I bought a Shanling M0S: it's a cute, super-compact DAP, identical to the M0-Pro reviewed by Amir, except for the use of a single CS43131 DAC/Amp insted of the dual ES9219's.

I also bought a HiBy XENO. It uses a CS43131 to drive the DD transducers, alongside an ES9018C2M feeding proprietary Cowell amps to drive the XMEMS transducers. The XMEMS thing is cool (ahem... I don't think I heard any difference...), but the Bridge chip is interesting to me: XENO uses an AB1565 SoC from Airoha. I believe it's a TWS-type chip and it appears quite powerful: besides feeding two completely different DACs, with an active X-over, it also supports a 10-band PEQ (PK, High & Low-Shelf). The PEQ filters can be entered through HiBy Music Android app (the app now supports HW-based, external PEQ, in addition to the integrated PEQ, MSEB, and Plugins), or through a dedicated Window app--not unlike the Topping DA50-III app. The Windows app is the same used to set the PEQ filters of the HiBy FD5 "high-end compact desktop DAC/Amp". HiBy FD5 and XENO may use a similar (same?) Airoha chip, but Bluetooth is enabled on the FD5 whereas it's not on XENO (well, it's a USB-C IEM...).
It remembers me that I have a HiBY WH2 dual BA TWS somewhere... That TWS was also using an Airoha chip, with a cool variable cross-over feature controlled through the 'HiBy Blue' app.

One more thing on Airoha: they've been owned by Mediatek for a long time (they may still be...), so some of Airoha-originated chips have been sold under the Mediatek brand... including a couple used by nothing more than SONY themselves and re-branded as SONY... Airoha may not be very well known, but they've got some good credentials!
 
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OT... A short :rolleyes: follow-up on what I learned about these TTGK modules.
  • The random Amazon AB229D dongles are TTGK's. But Walk Play is not enabled. Either TTGK's indication of Walk Play support in their datasheets is wrong... or, more likely, they have different FW's, customizing the various features enabled/disabled for each OEM.
  • The "HI-MAX" dongles are definitely Walk Play-enabled. The PEQ feature works fine. This is built around a CB1200AU SoC. I have several of these dongles, ordered as "add-on" to get free shipping from AliExpress. They are incredibly cheap ($3-6) "feature-rich" dongles: even if the performances are not top notch, they are certainly good enough to be left permanently attached to cheap IEMs, correcting/customizing them to one's preferences (PEQ).
  • I also confirmed that the Moondrop Quarks 2 DSP appears to use that same CB1200AU chip and is Walk Play enabled: you do get 8x PEQ filters through Walk Play... whereas, strangely enough, Moondrop's own app--the app used to set PEQ in FreeDSP, CDSP, MAY, Dusk-Crinacle, Chu-II, etc.--completely ignores Quarks 2 DSP. OTH, the OG Quarks DSP (not very common, but I have one) is not Walk Play enabled. The 'TTGK Station' app reported a FW update available for OG Quarks DSP, but I was not able to update it.
  • Related to the CB1200AU chip... this chip and the CB5100 used on JM20-Pro are marked "CBHT". I noted that one of TTGK current modules, the DAPD208A-CC, has a datasheet with a CBHT name:
  • View attachment 420463
  • So, now I wonder if TTGK and CBHT-Audio (and Bestechnic?) are one and the same company...
  • The JCally TC08-Pro & TC20 cables are not Walk Play enabled. Not sure if they are using TTGK modules either, as the USB descriptors only report Bestechnic / BES3001-SP.
  • The KZ AM01 dongle is a TTGK module, but is not Walk Play enabled either. It is most likely built around a BESxxx DAC + MAX97220 opamp.
  • I also got a TTGK TT39518F01-Pro module: CB5100 + dual CS43198. See the JM20 thread for more details.
Now, scrambling to be back on topic and talk about the CS43131 chip... :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

I bought a Shanling M0S: it's a cute, super-compact DAP, identical to the M0-Pro reviewed by Amir, except for the use of a single CS43131 DAC/Amp insted of the dual ES9219's.

I also bought a HiBy XENO. It uses a CS43131 to drive the DD transducers, alongside an ES9018C2M feeding proprietary Cowell amps to drive the XMEMS transducers. The XMEMS thing is cool (ahem... I don't think I heard any difference...), but the Bridge chip is interesting to me: XENO uses an AB1565 SoC from Airoha. I believe it's a TWS-type chip and it appears quite powerful: besides feeding two completely different DACs, with an active X-over, it also supports a 10-band PEQ (PK, High & Low-Shelf). The PEQ filters can be entered through HiBy Music Android app (the app now supports HW-based, external PEQ, in addition to the integrated PEQ, MSEB, and Plugins), or through a dedicated Window app--not unlike the Topping DA50-III app. The Windows app is the same used to set the PEQ filters of the HiBy FD5 "high-end compact desktop DAC/Amp". HiBy FD5 and XENO may use a similar (same?) Airoha chip, but Bluetooth is enabled on the FD5 whereas it's not on XENO (well, it's a USB-C IEM...).
It remembers me that I have a HiBY WH2 dual BA TWS somewhere... That TWS was also using an Airoha chip, with a cool variable cross-over feature controlled through the 'HiBy Blue' app.

One more thing on Airoha: they've been owned by Mediatek for a long time (they may still be...), so some of Airoha-originated chips have been sold under the Mediatek brand... including a couple used by nothing more than SONY themselves and re-branded as SONY... Airoha may not be very well known, but they've got some good credentials!
Airoha 1565 is used also in Tempotec Sonata BHD Pro but they didn't enabled neither BT nore any dsp functionality, a bit of a waste I'd say.
Just in case you would like to add one to your short collection to fiddle with :p
 
The official site says cs43131 outputs 30mW/Ch@32ohms, but from what I saw around reading the specs of DAP products, it seems cs43131 can output 65-70mW before bad distortions?
 
The official site says cs43131 outputs 30mW/Ch@32ohms, but from what I saw around reading the specs of DAP products, it seems cs43131 can output 65-70mW before bad distortions?
Besides the possible “marketing numbers”, DAPs may provide their own +/- rails supply and configure the CS43131 to bypass the internal charge pump & Class-H mode. It is also possible that the rails voltage are toward the max. allowed by the CS43131 (DAPs don’t have the 5V USB constraint of most dongles).
These optional configurations are listed in the CS43131 datasheet, although it was not clear to me if there is a potential power gain.

EDIT: I assume you understand that max. power is only important… when you need it !!! Most IEMs. and a large number of headphones, are plenty loud with 30mW…
 
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The official site says cs43131 outputs 30mW/Ch@32ohms, but from what I saw around reading the specs of DAP products, it seems cs43131 can output 65-70mW before bad distortions?
_b_THD+N vs Output Power at 32Ω __b_(Both channels driven, Right channel measured, 20Hz to 20k...png

Edit:
The 30mW figure probably stems from the fact that by default, the CS43131 will limit output voltage to 1Vrms (=31.25mW) with 32Ω loads attached.

The measurements above are with this mechanism disabled, to show the chip's true capabilities.
 
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Thanks. I guess Meizu Pro's high power is from the amp chip (OPA1622). But I wonder why the official page says only 30mW...
Interestingly, Meizu non-Pro is less powerful than JM20 and MB21p both of which are similar to the DAPs I saw with a single CS chip. Do JM20 and alike take special care to pull out the power of the CS, or do they simply use additional circuits for this?
It seems Ugreen pro indeed is single-CS, and how do you think it achieves this top-in-class power?
 
But I wonder why the official page says only 30mW...
See my edit above.

It seems Ugreen pro indeed is single-CS, and how do you think it achieves this top-in-class power?
Ugreen Pro uses the same OPA1622 as the Meizu Pro.

It has identical output power at 32Ω, but more distortion just below clipping, so I'd call it 2nd best (of the ones tested).
 
The measurements above are with this mechanism disabled, to show the chip's true capabilities.
Do the tested DAPs disable the limit by design, or did you use some additional tweaks? If the latter, can we do this via settings on our cellphones?

I meant the Meizu product info says Pro's output is 30mW, strange if they are just copying the CS docs.
 
Do the tested DAPs disable the limit by design, or did you use some additional tweaks? If the latter, can we do this via settings on our cellphones?
If you mean the dongle DACs in the graph, I bypassed their impedance sense auto gain using a regular 3.5mm male to female adapter.

Plug the adapter into the dongle, then the dongle into your USB host and the dongle will power on, then fail to measure a load impedance since nothing is connected to the adapter. Therefore, auto-gain will not be applied.

Afterwards, you can plug your headphone into the adapter and drive the dongle all the way to clipping.

This function is hard-coded into the dongles' firmware and cannot be affected from your smartphone.
 
See my edit above.


Ugreen Pro uses the same OPA1622 as the Meizu Pro.

It has identical output power at 32Ω, but more distortion just below clipping, so I'd call it 2nd best (of the ones tested).
Maybe off-topic but did you make other measurements of the Ugreen pro? Particularly the output impedance?
Would you recommend it as an alternative to Meizu Pro which is discontinued?
 
Maybe off-topic but did you make other measurements of the Ugreen pro? Particularly the output impedance?
I did not measure Zo vs Frequency

If you're fine with a quick and dirty 1kHz output impedance measurement, here goes:
Unloaded voltage: .12918Vrms
Loaded voltage: .12712Vrms
Load impedance: 10.48Ω
Output impedance: 10.48*(.12918/.12712-1)≈0.170Ω

Would you recommend it as an alternative to Meizu Pro which is discontinued?
I'd be surprised if you could still find one. Afaik the Ugreen 80583 has been discontinued as well.

Besides that, I've had no issues with mine.
 
I did not measure Zo vs Frequency

If you're fine with a quick and dirty 1kHz output impedance measurement, here goes:
Unloaded voltage: .12918Vrms
Loaded voltage: .12712Vrms
Load impedance: 10.48Ω
Output impedance: 10.48*(.12918/.12712-1)≈0.170Ω


I'd be surprised if you could still find one. Afaik the Ugreen 80583 has been discontinued as well.

Besides that, I've had no issues with mine.
Thanks, it looks nice.
I can find many used ones in excellent condition, but if you have other accommodations of similar specs and form factor, let me know.
 
I did not measure Zo vs Frequency

If you're fine with a quick and dirty 1kHz output impedance measurement, here goes:
Unloaded voltage: .12918Vrms
Loaded voltage: .12712Vrms
Load impedance: 10.48Ω
Output impedance: 10.48*(.12918/.12712-1)≈0.170Ω
Do you think that the 10 ohm adapter bundled with the Zero:Red can be used as a load for this measurement? I'm asking because I want to check the output impedance of the Kuang Pai Player 3 but too lazy atm to build up my resistor+alligator clips, then I remembered having this adapter and tried checking with it, but something seems strange... Set open load voltage at 0.1129 Vrms, then connected the adapter + a short trs male-male cable and measured volts are.... still 0.1129 Vrms. My multimeter resolution doesn't go further but this already could mean:
  • the dongle have an impressively low impedance less than 0.01 ohm
  • the adapter is not suited for the test
Any idea?
 
Do you think that the 10 ohm adapter bundled with the Zero:Red can be used as a load for this measurement? I'm asking because I want to check the output impedance of the Kuang Pai Player 3 but too lazy atm to build up my resistor+alligator clips, then I remembered having this adapter and tried checking with it, but something seems strange... Set open load voltage at 0.1129 Vrms, then connected the adapter + a short trs male-male cable and measured volts are.... still 0.1129 Vrms. My multimeter resolution doesn't go further but this already could mean:
  • the dongle have an impressively low impedance less than 0.01 ohm
  • the adapter is not suited for the test
Any idea?
The load must be connected to the Amp in parallel with your voltmeter.

I don't think your setup achieves that.
 
I bought a Snowsky Retro Nano (I paid $59.50). Snowsky is a (new) sub-brand of FiiO, they also have an entry-level DAP (~$50), and an on-ear headphones (~$18).

The Retro Nano is a Bluetooth/USB battery-powered dongle. It has both 3.5 and 4.4mm outputs and I believe it is closely related to FiiO own’s BTR13: it uses the same dual CS43131 DAC/Amp (pfff..... I'm not off-topic this time! ;)), and a QCC5125 as USB bridge & BT receiver. The complete spec, including FiiO APx500 measurements, are available at: https://www.fiio.com/retronano_parameters
Here it is, with the BTR13 and Qudelix 5K on its right:
1737567781739.png


It’s a cool device! :) I like the retro “cassette” look (it's an animation!).
It has a removeable 10440 (450mAh) battery—easy to replace when dead, around ~$3 a piece. But you can also increase the autonomy by carrying a spare (charged!) battery(ies). A battery container is included. Oh, and it also works with no battery, powered from the USB port.
1737568564932.png


It is not yet (?) supported by the FiiO Control WebApp, but the FiiO Control app (tested with iOS) enables quite a range of settings, including a 10-band PEQ (up to 3 custom "sticky" PEQ settings—they are saved onboard—plus the usual Jazz, Pop, Rock, etc.). It’s not quite as comprehensive or "advanced" as the Q5K app, but it makes for an easier experience overall: for example, all the main settings are accessible from the on-screen menu, so most of the time, you don’t need the app at all.

Ok, now my real CS43131-related question… The app offers these two THD compensation sliders:
1737568977802.png


The BTR13 does not have these... I have seen comparable features on ESS DACs: for example, the E1DA ESS-based dongles expose similar H2/H3 comp. settings in the app, and the corresponding registers are documented in the ESS datasheets. They are intended to "compensate" (some of) the THD generated in the I/V stage, potentially the amp. stage, and even the Headphones or IEM... On E1DA dongles, you can also use them the other way around to purposedly add euphonic THD (I suspect some OEMs use this trick to create their own “house sound”).

But this is the first time I see a THD compensation on a Cirrus Logic DAC. I could not find any mention of THD-comp. registers in CS4313 datasheet either...
Is this an undocumented feature of the CS43131? Or, is this something FiiO implemented in the QCC5125 Kalimba DSP core (I believe it's relatively easy to do in a DSP)?

EDIT: The Android version of FiiO Control app does not show these THD comp sliders when connected to the same Retro Nano device. I then looked back at the iOS app, and these sliders are actually stuck to zero. Why do they even show up on the iOS app... I don't know!

Oh, and before somebody asks: are these H2/H3 comp. audible? Maybe… So far, I have refused to drag my immediate family & friends in this hobby, meaning I can’t really perform a valid controlled blind test on my own! EDIT: totally inaudible !!! It's embarrassing, but I just realize that, in my haste, I was moving the channel balance slider around and not the second-harmonic compensation slider. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: So, now the (updated) correct, question is: is the channel balance setting audible? My (updated) answer: Maybe... If I change this balance setting enough !!!
 
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