Moonriver2, Jcally AP98 Measurements.

[alekksander]

It's odd, alsa seems to treat the card as if it has two volume controls. If I set the volume type to "Hardware" or "Null" then I get no sound at all. On these settings the output of amixer -c2 contents is

numid=3,iface=MIXER,name='PCM Playback Volume'
  ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---R--,values=2,min=0,max=127,step=0
  : values=0,0
  | dBminmax-min=-63.50dB,max=0.00dB
numid=4,iface=MIXER,name='PCM Playback Volume',index=1
  ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---R--,values=1,min=0,max=127,step=0
  : values=127
  | dBminmax-min=-63.50dB,max=0.00dB

I.e. the first mixer is set to 0 and there's no sound.

Given that @Jimbob54 is finding a similar result on Android, it seems that this unit is reporting its volume control in a way that's slightly confusing to linux-based systems. Luckily it's easy to fix as long as you have an interface that lets you dig a bit deeper.

does it respond to devices gain -- changed with simultaneously pressed volume buttons?

 

[charleski]

does it respond to devices gain -- changed with simultaneously pressed volume buttons?

Switching to low-gain mode results in an audible drop in volume, but amixer reports the same value (127) for both mixers. Trying to decrease volume using just the '-' key results in no volume change (and no change in amixer).

 

[jae]

How much power does the 98 have over the 90?

 

[charleski]

I'm happy to report that after a week of using this for an hour or two every day I've experienced no skips or dropouts of any kind. Just as well, as this was the entire reason I bought it (the TempoTec Sonata HD I was using would drop sync about once an hour). I strongly suspect this is a consequence of the AP90 using a proper USB bridge chip that negotiates asynchronous transfers.

 

[alekksander]

I'm happy to report that after a week of using this for an hour or two every day I've experienced no skips or dropouts of any kind. Just as well, as this was the entire reason I bought it (the TempoTec Sonata HD I was using would drop sync about once an hour). I strongly suspect this is a consequence of the AP90 using a proper USB bridge chip that negotiates asynchronous transfers.

if i may: was it the case for specific device only, or general rule despite source? we have tempotec sonata hd here, and withing my (less than hour per one time) experience there were no drop outs over time, but rather when i stopped playing music and wanted to resume it. never tried from pc yet.

 

[charleski]

if i may: was it the case for specific device only, or general rule despite source? we have tempotec sonata hd here, and withing my (less than hour per one time) experience there were no drop outs over time, but rather when i stopped playing music and wanted to resume it. never tried from pc yet.

I got dropouts playing from both a MacBookPro and a raspberry pi. The only way I found to reduce the frequency at which they occur is to oversample (the higher the better).

 

[saviour]

I think AP10 is probably the same product. So I ordered both this Black Friday.

How is the ap10?

 

[charleski]

How is the ap10?

The ad for the AP10 states it uses a Savitech SA9312L chip as the USB controller. This page quotes a TempoTec employee who states that the same chip is used for the Sonata HD Pro (the model I have that is running in adaptive mode and experiences dropouts). So the AP10 might have the same issue.
@eyecent: When you get the AP10 could you run the Thesycon USB dumper (linked on the first page) on it and post the results?

 

[D0Hbert]

JCally AP90's innards

 

[alekksander]

JCally AP90's innards
View attachment 252878

nice. thanks!
possible to post reverse?

 

[D0Hbert]

Tried to remove the whole pcb before but can't seem to pluck it out of the casing. Its very easy to remove the glass cover though, heat it slightly with a heatgun or hairdryer, use suction cup or any instrument you can adhere the glasscover to and pull the cover off. Cover is sticked on to the device around the 4 corners only, hope ot helps

 

[alekksander]

Tried to remove the whole pcb before but can't seem to pluck it out of the casing. Its very easy to remove the glass cover though, heat it slightly with a heatgun or hairdryer, use suction cup or any instrument you can adhere the glasscover to and pull the cover off. Cover is sticked on to the device around the 4 corners only, hope ot helps

judging on the pictures it seems to be glued in the corners. perhaps more of it underneath. guessing it's different type of glue – not that prone to heat, or it's too tick to get plastic easily.

 

[charleski]

I’ve recently moved from Moode (based on mpd) to piCorePlayer (LMS + Squeezelite) and found that the latter automatically sets the volume properly to full. But the DAC stills needs to be reset explicitly after any sort of power interruption. I think this is the same problem I found on Moode where I would need to restart mpd manually after a fresh boot otherwise the output was very noisy.
Currently I just kill and restart squeezelite in my boot script, and that does the job, but I suspect a more elegant solution would be to do alsa force-reload before starting up squeezelite the first time.

 

[toge]

could someone compare the MR2 and AP98 to the Shio? another cs43198 dac and cheaper than both

 

[raif71]

Many moonriver2 dongles