Anyone tried new TinySine DSP with ADAU1452?

[Mark185]

I just discovered that TinySine is selling a new DSP board using a higher spec chip than their low cost board based on ADAU 1701. Here is the new one:

https://www.tinysineaudio.com/products/tsa1452b-bluetooth-dsp-audio-receiver-board

The TSA1452b comes preloaded with software and can be used as-is without additional programming but you do need to understand the functionality in the Sigma DSP schematic and how to interface this board with a DAC or two or three. There are 2 analog outputs but the real power will come with pairing it with external DACs. Only down side I see so far is there is no manual available like the one they have with their DSP based on the ADAU1701. It would be useful to have documentation of which ADC ports are configured for potentiometers, analog input, I2S input, etc. This can be figured out from the schematic but I really prefer a written manual I can refer to.

I like the TinySine products because they usually are fairly well documented and much easier to program via USB interface than competing boards on Aliexpress and from Dayton Audio. The 1452 is vastly more capable than the 1701 and this new board has digital outputs that can be used with the DAC of your choice. I am thinking this may be a good pairing with the York DAC board available from a member of diyAudio.

Note: There are some well developed products using the 1452 available from members of diyAudio that are much more turn key and come with software preloaded and well documented. I am thinking specifically of the PDAC100 system from @uriy-ch . I purchased the PDAC100D from him and it is very well done. Highly recommended. PDAC100D will be far more cost effective because it includes amplifier chips with direct digital inputs from the ADAU1452 eliminating the need for DACs. The TinySine board is a basic device but if you want to experiment and learn more on your own, this is a good product and far more capable than anything from Wondom in terms of signal processing power.

I am buying one to experiment with. Lately, I have been getting my kicks buying and learning how to program various DSP boards for crossovers and PEQ functions. At this point, I own more boards for DIY designs than I will ever use but I derive fun from experimenting with them and comparing them.

 

[DatSpeakerTho]

Seems ok, depending on what you need DSPi would be a lot cheaper, and give you more I/O.

Seems these little DSP boards are really gaining popularity. The hardware has been around for awhile, but not much in the way of good software. DSPi is the only one that doesn't drive me insane so far. Sigma studio and I didn't get along, I understood how to use it, just hated actually using it.

 

[Mark185]

Seems ok, depending on what you need DSPi would be a lot cheaper, and give you more I/O.

Seems these little DSP boards are really gaining popularity. The hardware has been around for awhile, but not much in the way of good software. DSPi is the only one that doesn't drive me insane so far. Sigma studio and I didn't get along, I understood how to use it, just hated actually using it.

I struggled with Sigma Studio in the beginning - especially with the Aliexpress boards with the 1452 chip and no useful documentation and the cheap Wondom products. That changed with the TinySine 1702 board because it was fairly well documented with a software load that worked out of the box. I also found Google Gemini to be extremely helpful in teaching me how to use Sigma Studio to design specific functions that were not well described in YouTube videos and written documentation.

As far as more I/O. the key to that with this TinySine board is understanding how to use I2S to send audio to external DACs. I like that because it allows me to choose the best DACs I can afford. It takes more time to figure out how to make it work but once again, Gemini can shorten the learning curve. I am already working on a design with the AI helping teach me what I need to know.

 

[Mark185]

DSPi is an amazing piece of work but that needs at least as much investment in time to learn how to use and interface it with external DACs. I will get around to experimenting with that but for now, this ADAU1452 board is going to be much easier to incorporate into a 3 way active loudspeaker I am building. I already did a trial run using the TinySine 1702 board for a 2 way 'boom box' design and had great results. That gives me confidence to take the next step with a 1452 design. This will be a home speaker with BG planar magnetic NEO8 AND NEO3 PDR midrange and tweeter and 6" midbass. Amplifiers will most likely be SAMP-200 boards using TPA3255 chips or some 3E Audio amplifiers I already own.

 

[DatSpeakerTho]

Did you ever get one? I'm thinking about grabbing one as it would make a for a good low latency 2 way xover even though I hate sigma studio.

 

[Mark185]

Did you ever get one? I'm thinking about grabbing one as it would make a for a good low latency 2 way xover even though I hate sigma studio.

Yes, I did but I have not started to program it yet. Sigma Studio is not that bad but you have to get over the learning 'hump'. If you tried to figure out how to use Sigma Studio using YouTube videos from Wondom and Analog Devices, that is part of the problem. On their own, they do not cover enough. I found I had to supplement them with other sources of information. I also got help by using Gemini AI and telling what board I was using and what I wanted to program the board to do. Gemini is not perfect and it made mistakes but I learned by trying things and if they did not work, I told Gemini they did not work and it came up with different ideas to try. The key to all of this is to try things and not get frustrated if it does not work right away. Keep plugging away and you will start to understand better.

There are also some very good tutorials out there and I am not talking about the Wondom or Analog Devices videos. I have attached a pdf I compiled with a multi-part series that I found very helpful.

If you really hate Sigma Studio, there is an alternative you can buy on Tindie. The designer wrote his own software that is patterned after miniDSP software and it is very user friendly from what I can see. Here is a link : https://www.tindie.com/products/eclipsevl/york-dsp-2x4/

This board is very well supported by the designer. He has a thread on diyAudio and I think he also has a thread here on ASR. I actually own both boards and I think the York DSP is probably the better of the two. Programming the York board is a little more complicated than the TinySine. The York board ships with a York Nano USB interface board that works very well but you have to solder on a header or individual wires for the ground, sda and scl lines to communicate with the York DSP. The York USB interfaces are documented well by the designer. He has not published the equivalent guide for the York DSP but I expect that will be released soon. I attached the York Nano datasheet.

 

[john61ct]

York DSP devices

Hello, couple of times I posted my projects photos in different threads but I think it is time to create a separate thread. I've been working on the York USB UAC2 interface and then started transitioning into DSP hardware and software. One project is a 4 channel D-Class amplifier for which I...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Mark185]

Here is URL to the Sigma Studio Tutorials I packaged in the pdf file above:

SigmaStudio Tutorial Part 1.

I have been playing around with SigmaStudio quite a bit by now. Some is quite intuitive and some is not. I had to learn most the hard way br...

emumannen.blogspot.com

 

[Mark185]

i just noticed that the TinySine board has two I2S outputs and SPDIF output and the York DSP only has one SPDIF out. This is important if you want use better quality DACs when they become available or you want/need more channels for 3 way or 4 way active speakers. With TinySine board, this is possible. With York DSP, it is not. Designer of the York is working on an 8 channel version but he is not releasing it any time soon.

So for now, TinySine 1452 board gives more options for how complex you may want to get in terms of external DACs and number of channels controlled by DSP.

York DSP is great for 2 way active crossover speaker design and can do a 3 way if you use its SPDIF out. But that is its limit. York DSP has software that relieves you of learning Sigma Studio.

 

[DatSpeakerTho]

I played around with sigma studio some more and well, it doesn't suck as much as I thought. I ordered the Tinysine board after going over it and realizing it's basically exactly what I need for a low latency studio speaker processor. For some reason my brain thought the PCM1522 lanes and I2s out lanes were shared, but of course that doesn't make sense so this thing has more outs than I initially thought. Nice thing is I can just plug it in, load up my config and be good to go. I wanted to finish my DSPi but looking at all the soldering and how much time I seem to have anymore, whew not sure I want to go down that road.

 

[DatSpeakerTho]

Here is URL to the Sigma Studio Tutorials I packaged in the pdf file above:

SigmaStudio Tutorial Part 1.

I have been playing around with SigmaStudio quite a bit by now. Some is quite intuitive and some is not. I had to learn most the hard way br...

emumannen.blogspot.com

Great tutorial!

 

[Mark185]

Great tutorial!

Possibly the best one out there.

 

[DatSpeakerTho]

Board is here, nice that it came with a bunch of breakout cables. I have signal input going with metering, but I can't seem to get anything to output. Will have to keep going and report when I solve it.

Got it, had to load the default program. Outputs for Line out 1 start on 40-41. I suggest loading the default firmware from tinysine to look at how things are mapped.

 

[DatSpeakerTho]

Aight, this unit is the bees knees. Pretty much have it all ready to go with maybe a few tweaks left in my project. I'm just now seeing things like being able to add clipping LED's to it, and that's just the super basic stuff but pretty exciting.

I have to figure out why my REW loopback analysis for distortion looks weird, but otherwise shows great noise performance, and that is going into the ADC and out the DAC and this is with my speakers processing, which is currently just some minimum phase filters. I'm also pleased to see that with my basic amateur, totally unoptimized project, my round trip latency for the DSP is only 1ms. This really makes it ideal for my studio use case.

I also just pulled the bluetooth board off, I have zero use for that. The units noise appears to be very low as well, with a topping mini 300 hooked up to my tweeter, I can't actually tell if it's on even if I put my ear up to it, very impressive!

 

[john61ct]

So, using external DAC what is the maximum output channel count.

Are the analog outputs high SQ? Just two additional ?

Can multiple boards be clocked together?

 

[Mark185]

So, using external DAC what is the maximum output channel count.

Are the analog outputs high SQ? Just two additional ?

Can multiple boards be clocked together?

it is possible to use I2S lines to communicate to multiple DACs (>> more than 2) using Time Division Multiplex (TDM) protocol. If you don't understand how to do that, Google Gemini is your friend. I have used that AI to explain a lot of technical things I did not understand. Max output channel count is dependent on clock and I do not recall how many are possible with 48 kHz.

The analog outputs are not as good as ESS or AKM DACs bit they are decent. The difference is something like 105 dB vs 120 dB dynamic range based on the noise floor.

If you want a turn key system, this board is not for you. If you are contemplating rolling your own, my advice is just jump in and start experimenting. There is only so much you can learn by posting to forums. These are not expensive boards. You can buy very cheap external DACs based on Texas Instruments chips to start your development and upgrade to more expensive DACs later when you have a system design working.

Search for this inexpensive DAC. It is small and cheap and will get you started.

pcm5102 i2s Lossless Digital Audio dac decoder Module​

 

[DatSpeakerTho]

If you want a turn key system, this board is not for you.

Totally agree. It seems these are good for systems where nothing will change.

There are so many quirks to this, but my god you learn the nitty gritty of how audio signals work in the devices we use. Like apparently if you up the sample rate to 96khz, it makes your crossover filters behave differently unless you change some other parameters. If that sort of troubleshooting sounds fun to you, boy do I have a treat for you lol. The power is kind of crazy here if you know how to use. You could set things up so a mechanical arm could pour you a beer or a light joint a for your between tracks and start your laundry while monitoring your ambient room air temp, or possibly set things up so a random animal sample plays every 10 seconds. Useful stuff like that.

Same filters, mic on a stand. 48khz vs. 96khz. Aint this fun

 

[Mark185]

It is a great feeling when you try something, it doesn't work quite like you expected, and then you figure it out. At least it does if your brain is wired that way. I have put in some long evenings figuring mine out and it is addictive if you like this sort of thing.

 

[DatSpeakerTho]

Well I was hoping to get away with unbalanced in and out, but I'm getting pops on just the tweeter amp when turning on phantom power on my interface. I'll have to do the balanced trick and lose some total ins and outs. When using the programmer, I get mic signal into the tweeter amp even with phantom off and it's a condenser. Some sort of strange bleed happening.

 

[DatSpeakerTho]

Actually I think my motu m2 is busted. If I plug a guitar in and just play, I get output on the motu, but it shouldn't be getting ANYTHING to the output until I hook a computer up and route it via DAW. The hardware internal monitoring is off. My m4 behaves completely differently. Bummer.

Nevermind m4 does it too, what on earth?

The plot thickens, it only does this on ONE of my computers. I have no idea where to even start on that.

I feel the need to explain the issue. As a live sound tech and musician of 20 years, I am a professional and I would never make such a mistake as leaving EKIO running in the background routing all my signals. Nope, would never do that