Help building DIY digital active crossovers

[312elements]

I'm getting all of my ducks in a row for digital active crossovers and I'm interested in any personal experiences regarding software. Not sure if it matters, but I'll also add that this will be a 3 way plus subwoofers. The options I'm currently considering are using something like a raspberry pi with a flavor of linux or one of those low power PC dongles. Any suggestions in support of one over the other are welcome. The final product will be used for both consuming video content via appleTV as well as Roon so I'd like to avoid relying on Roon for anything other than music streaming.

Thanks in advance.

 

[staticV3]

I'd use a Flex Eight, or Flex HT/HTx.

 

[312elements]

I'd use a Flex Eight, or Flex HT/HTx.

While a great suggestion I’ll be using computer based DSP (instead of sharc) for additional versatility.

 

[JayGilb]

I'm running Windows and use Eiko as my crossover software. The tool has a fair amount of flexibility and has been rock solid for me.

 

[312elements]

@JayGilb thank you. I’m currently working through a post here on ekio and wrapping my head around it. Was this the only tool you tried? It certainly looks robust.

 

[Rednaxela]

Maybe some inspiration for you here?

Multi-Channel, Multi-Amplifier Audio System Using Software Crossover and Multichannel-DAC

Edit: Please find here (on this thread) and here (remote independent thread post) the Hyperlink Index of this thread and some of my related posts in remote threads ************************************************** Edit on August 8, 2023 Jus for your reference,,, - The latest system setup of my...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Or here:

RPi4 + CamillaDSP Tutorial

Intent of this thread is to provide a tutorial for setting up CamillaDSP on a RPi4. There is a lot of good information scattered through ASR, DIYAudio and the CamillaDSP GitHub but there also appears to be a lot of apprehension. My goal is to give concrete examples of how to use CamillaDSP with...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Or here:

Multichannel audio on a Pi will get a whole lot easier and cheaper!

The release date of the Raspberry Pi 5 is growing ever closer, although it’s still not clear when exactly it’s going to be released. So actually, it will be available Oktober 23rd :) Even so, more I formation has surfaced lately, and it may be really interesting for those who are after...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Esp. at the end of the last one things might get interesting for you.

HTH!

 

[phoenixdogfan]

I've used Dephonica, and JRiver as well as the miniDSP software. Dephonica is like Ekio, only it's freeware. Rephase and Equalizer APO can also be used to construct crossover filters. For that matter, both aCCourate and Audiolense, which are digital room and speaker correction programs, also have the capability of constructing crossover filters.

 

[JayGilb]

@JayGilb thank you. I’m currently working through a post here on ekio and wrapping my head around it. Was this the only tool you tried? It certainly looks robust.

I also tried JRiver, both were usable, but finally settled on Eiko due to a more friendly interface.

 

[voodooless]

How will you be getting AppleTV sound in your device? Unless you have a very old version, it only has HDMI out. Som either you’ll need an HDMI extractor, or use AirPlay. The latter is probably sub-optimal.

As for a pi, that should work fine. Check out CamilaDSP, it can do all the DSP magic and more.

 

[312elements]

How will you be getting AppleTV sound in your device? Unless you have a very old version, it only has HDMI out. Som either you’ll need an HDMI extractor, or use AirPlay. The latter is probably sub-optimal.

As for a pi, that should work fine. Check out CamilaDSP, it can do all the DSP magic and more.

I’m currently using an extractor with i2s into a Pontus 12th, but the extractor also outputs spdif so I’ll be using that with the new rig. I can’t use the Pontus for this project as the way the FIFO buffer works the delay is variable. Camilla DSP continues to come up as suggestion and the price is hard to beat, so it’s definitely in the running.

 

[312elements]

Maybe some inspiration for you here?

Multi-Channel, Multi-Amplifier Audio System Using Software Crossover and Multichannel-DAC

Edit: Please find here (on this thread) and here (remote independent thread post) the Hyperlink Index of this thread and some of my related posts in remote threads ************************************************** Edit on August 8, 2023 Jus for your reference,,, - The latest system setup of my...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Or here:

RPi4 + CamillaDSP Tutorial

Intent of this thread is to provide a tutorial for setting up CamillaDSP on a RPi4. There is a lot of good information scattered through ASR, DIYAudio and the CamillaDSP GitHub but there also appears to be a lot of apprehension. My goal is to give concrete examples of how to use CamillaDSP with...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Or here:

Multichannel audio on a Pi will get a whole lot easier and cheaper!

The release date of the Raspberry Pi 5 is growing ever closer, although it’s still not clear when exactly it’s going to be released. So actually, it will be available Oktober 23rd :) Even so, more I formation has surfaced lately, and it may be really interesting for those who are after...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Esp. at the end of the last one things might get interesting for you.

HTH!

Thank you. I was familiar with the first two, but hadn’t gotten to the end of the last one. Pretty cool that multichannel like this appears to be on the horizon. Currently just looking for a fairly straightforward 2 channel setup so it seems like the possibilities are endless.

 

[voodooless]

One issue with processing video sound will be latency. With an OS comes layers of buffers on top of the processing delay. Something to consider.

 

[312elements]

One issue with processing video sound will be latency. With an OS comes layers of buffers on top of the processing delay. Something to consider.

Any advice for minimizing delay? I assumed it would be easy to delay the video on ATV, but a quick search suggests that’s not a thing.

 

[voodooless]

Any advice for minimizing delay?

If you can configure buffers, make them as small as possible

I assumed it would be easy to delay the video on ATV, but a quick search suggests that’s not a thing.

No idea… usually it’s the TV or AVR that tells the device the audio/video timing difference. Maybe your TV has a setting to tweak this.