Sigma ADAU1701 Review (DSP Board)

[3eaudio]

Just wanted to update the info, as the DSP can do 2Vrms input by changing the input resistor.

It would be great if 3E just added some jumpers to make the modification.

replace the input resistor is easy.
it can handle 4V or even higher than as @amirm expected.

 

[3eaudio]

I am not testing DSP performance but rather ADC/DAC. Performance is limited by second harmonic:

View attachment 110207

It is highly unlikely that any DSP processing creates such. FYI I played with tone controls and difference in SINAD was minimal until it clipped.

it does not make sense as the ADC is starting clipping with 1.1V input.

 

[EmuMannen]

Sorry for being late to the party but for whats is worth, here's my two cents...

I don't know exactly how the testing was carried out but if the board was measured on the bench without a proper enclosure then its not fair to compare the performance to a MiniDSP 2x4 HD.

My experience with the ADAU1701 based DSP from 3e Audio is very good. I got several of these boards and I have used them both as active crossovers and as the preamp stage with all kinds of filtering. It is surprisingly easy to get any DSP sound bad if not integrated or programmed properly. I made a whole write-up about it in this blog-post: https://emumannen.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-ultimate-integrate-part-7.html

And for a more general write-up about the same, see: https://emumannen.blogspot.com/2021/07/sigmastudio-tutorial-part-2.html

Proper gain staging, a shielded enclosure and proper grounding design are all prerequisites for best possible sound. Done right and it's a steal at its price point. But the real value is not the sound quality, its the accessibility to the ADAU1701 architecture. You will not find the best possible ADCs, DACs or DSP chips but you will have more or less total freedom to make it do whatever you want. And you can do it with the convenience of a graphical design tool like SigmaStudio. To me that is worth a ton and hard to beat.

So the first thing you should do if you want to measure it is to reprogram it just linking input to output without anything in-between. Put the board in an enclosure with proper grounding, feed it with clean power and an input signal not clipping the inputs. Then evaluate the performance / price ratio and factor in the complete freedom of programming it doing whatever you want through a lot of exposed GPIO pins.

If you don't know how to program the DSP, please have a look at my tutorial: https://emumannen.blogspot.com/search/label/Tutorial

 

[Katji]

^^^ @EmuMannen , welcome here.
Very nice blog; very clear, clearly illustrated.

 

[Vuki]

Sorry for being late to the party but for whats is worth, here's my two cents...

I don't know exactly how the testing was carried out but if the board was measured on the bench without a proper enclosure then its not fair to compare the performance to a MiniDSP 2x4 HD.

My experience with the ADAU1701 based DSP from 3e Audio is very good. I got several of these boards and I have used them both as active crossovers and as the preamp stage with all kinds of filtering. It is surprisingly easy to get any DSP sound bad if not integrated or programmed properly. I made a whole write-up about it in this blog-post: https://emumannen.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-ultimate-integrate-part-7.html

And for a more general write-up about the same, see: https://emumannen.blogspot.com/2021/07/sigmastudio-tutorial-part-2.html

Proper gain staging, a shielded enclosure and proper grounding design are all prerequisites for best possible sound. Done right and it's a steal at its price point. But the real value is not the sound quality, its the accessibility to the ADAU1701 architecture. You will not find the best possible ADCs, DACs or DSP chips but you will have more or less total freedom to make it do whatever you want. And you can do it with the convenience of a graphical design tool like SigmaStudio. To me that is worth a ton and hard to beat.

So the first thing you should do if you want to measure it is to reprogram it just linking input to output without anything in-between. Put the board in an enclosure with proper grounding, feed it with clean power and an input signal not clipping the inputs. Then evaluate the performance / price ratio and factor in the complete freedom of programming it doing whatever you want through a lot of exposed GPIO pins.

If you don't know how to program the DSP, please have a look at my tutorial: https://emumannen.blogspot.com/search/label/Tutorial

Great blog!!!

 

[mga2009]

Sorry for being late to the party but for whats is worth, here's my two cents...

I don't know exactly how the testing was carried out but if the board was measured on the bench without a proper enclosure then its not fair to compare the performance to a MiniDSP 2x4 HD.

My experience with the ADAU1701 based DSP from 3e Audio is very good. I got several of these boards and I have used them both as active crossovers and as the preamp stage with all kinds of filtering. It is surprisingly easy to get any DSP sound bad if not integrated or programmed properly. I made a whole write-up about it in this blog-post: https://emumannen.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-ultimate-integrate-part-7.html

And for a more general write-up about the same, see: https://emumannen.blogspot.com/2021/07/sigmastudio-tutorial-part-2.html

Proper gain staging, a shielded enclosure and proper grounding design are all prerequisites for best possible sound. Done right and it's a steal at its price point. But the real value is not the sound quality, its the accessibility to the ADAU1701 architecture. You will not find the best possible ADCs, DACs or DSP chips but you will have more or less total freedom to make it do whatever you want. And you can do it with the convenience of a graphical design tool like SigmaStudio. To me that is worth a ton and hard to beat.

So the first thing you should do if you want to measure it is to reprogram it just linking input to output without anything in-between. Put the board in an enclosure with proper grounding, feed it with clean power and an input signal not clipping the inputs. Then evaluate the performance / price ratio and factor in the complete freedom of programming it doing whatever you want through a lot of exposed GPIO pins.

If you don't know how to program the DSP, please have a look at my tutorial: https://emumannen.blogspot.com/search/label/Tutorial

Welcome!

Great blog!

Could you please report your findings (for newbies like me) regarding:
-. enclosure with proper grounding
-. feed it with clean power and
-. input signal not clipping the inputs

I have two 3E audio DSP board planning on conencting them in daisychain, with a USB input (USB-TDM8 out) and it would be great to know little bit more on this stuff.

I already have a metal enclosure for the boards, and I plan on feed them with a Meanwell SMPS 5V PSU. Is it clean enough?

About input sensitivity, as I will be using digital input, should I still watch for the gain structure?

Cheers

 

[EmuMannen]

Welcome!

Thanks

Great blog!

Thanks

Could you please report your findings (for newbies like me) regarding:
-. enclosure with proper grounding

Metal enclosure is great and follow some sort of grounding scheme, like star ground, ground bus etc. Avoid ground loops. If possible separate digital ground from analog ground and keep small signal ground "upstream". Grounding is a pretty complex topic but essential to fully understand. David Davenport has put together a great primer over at DiyAudio: Audio Component Grounding and Interconnection

-. feed it with clean power and

Clean as in as noise and ripple free as possible. Like an old school unregulated linear power supply or a modern switch mode power supply purpose built for audio application.

-. input signal not clipping the inputs

A signal with a level low enough to not clip an analog input. The max level depends on the inputs sensitivity. E.g. consider 1.0 Vrms as max input level for the 3e Audio DSP (it is actually 1.1 Vrms but make it 1.0 for some margin).

I have two 3E audio DSP board planning on conencting them in daisychain, with a USB input (USB-TDM8 out) and it would be great to know little bit more on this stuff.

I have not used it with USB as input myself.

I already have a metal enclosure for the boards, and I plan on feed them with a Meanwell SMPS 5V PSU. Is it clean enough?

Metal enclosure great, make sure its grounded properly, Meanwell makes pretty good SMPS, not purpose built for audio but probably good enough if your not super picky and as long as you get the grounding right. Try to keep the mains and the SMPS as far away from small analog signals as possible inside the enclosure.

About input sensitivity, as I will be using digital input, should I still watch for the gain structure?

Max input level is 0 dBFS in the digital domain (all bits set). No analog clipping to worry about at the input but everything else apply. Max 24 dB additional headroom in the DSP core (from your 0 dBFS), max 0 dBFS out of the core (anything above will be clipped on its way out to the DACs). And you will have to match the analog output level of the DSP to your power amps. From the 3e Audio DSP 0 dBFS on the outputs equals 1.533 Vrms single ended and 3.075 Vrms for differential output. You have to match it to the sensitivity of your power amps. You can do in the digital domain (by using a attenuator/compressor/limiter before the signal leaves the core) or by analog attenuator between the DSPs output and the poweramps input (or a combination of both). Note that you loose one bit of resolution for each 6 dB attenuation below 0 dBFS in the digital domain.

Cheers

Good luck with your build.

 

[Pygmy]

Working with this board tonight and a bit of Googling got me here.. I guess I'm late to the party, the first thing I thought reading the original post was "Oh no, he didn't use it with the default Sigmastudio program it ships with, right?"..

The first thing I did when opening the default program in Sigmastudio was to remove all the clutter - auto source selection, auto mute, PEQ's, compressors, and so on and so forth.

For testing you should really use the basic thing, not the "Tokyo Drift with 1500MegaWatt BassBoost!" edition..

 

[MrHifiTunes]

Any more opinions of this DSP board?
Is it still a good one anno 2023?

 

[mga2009]

Any more opinions of this DSP board?
Is it still a good one anno 2023?

ADC is very poor
DAC is mediocre/good
Software and customization are AWESOME for DIY audio.

If someone would manage to make a good enough ADC board and plug it to the I2S ports of the ADAU 1701, half of the problems would be solved.

 

[somebodyelse]

If someone would manage to make a good enough ADC board and plug it to the I2S ports of the ADAU 1701, half of the problems would be solved.

Or digital input (usb, spdif etc.) - haven't checked the pinout for the bluetooth header.

 

[MrHifiTunes]

ADC is very poor
DAC is mediocre/good
Software and customization are AWESOME for DIY audio.

If someone would manage to make a good enough ADC board and plug it to the I2S ports of the ADAU 1701, half of the problems would be solved.

But is there any better for about the same price?

 

[mga2009]

But is there any better for about the same price?

You can go with an Aliexpress ADAU1452 but there are no measurements on the DAC and ADC. Specwise ADAU1452 is way better than ADAU1701, but the implementation for those boards is sketchy...

What is your application?

IE. if it's subwoofer implementation, I assume ADAU1701 is good enough. Active speaker maybe not, and you should check better performers (HypeX fusion or miniDSP flex). Also, there are some other boards like this:

(@fxtreme_electronics) • Fotos y videos de Instagram

1,002 seguidores, 17 seguidos, 12 publicaciones - Ver fotos y videos de Instagram de (@fxtreme_electronics)

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[Jdunk54nl]

I like the adau1467 eval boards

 

[MrHifiTunes]

You can go with an Aliexpress ADAU1452 but there are no measurements on the DAC and ADC. Specwise ADAU1452 is way better than ADAU1701, but the implementation for those boards is sketchy...

What is your application?

IE. if it's subwoofer implementation, I assume ADAU1701 is good enough. Active speaker maybe not, and you should check better performers (HypeX fusion or miniDSP flex). Also, there are some other boards like this:

(@fxtreme_electronics) • Fotos y videos de Instagram

1,002 seguidores, 17 seguidos, 12 publicaciones - Ver fotos y videos de Instagram de (@fxtreme_electronics)

www.instagram.com

Planning for active 3-way. If its not high quality I just want to use it for test purpose and will make my xo passive.
I have a hypex plate amp but it is only 2-way, not 3 way.
Don't know if I can use that for test purpose of a 3-way design.
Crossover parts are expensive ( but not hypex money). But don't want to waste money on big inductors and capacitors which end up on the shelf.