are the firmware updates intended to be a sonic improvement or are they for functional issues ?
I believe they are to improve issues and features at this time.
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You also might want to get a good USB thumb drive for firmware updates as over internet firmware updates are not enabled at this time. The one posted above works well here and the price is good.
In general the updates are primarily for enhancement of the sound quality, but weāll be adding new features along the way as well.
But the April update is primarily to fix the ticks and pops some experience with release 179 or 198 of the FPGA and to add in some features supported in the hardware to the UI: e.g. configuring auto power off of some of the inputs, bit perfect testing and using the bit perfect tests to configure the polarity of the I2S inputs.
We have had reports that the sound is better with various betaās of the code and I did indeed explicitly add some code that should at least make DSD sound a little better.
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Thanks Ted. Good explanation.
ā¦as well as providing a meaningful service to owners of the DSD Mk II.
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Thanks
I prefer the Sandisk Cruizer 32 gb. It is tiny in physical size can stay in place without the chance of it or the usb port to be damage. It works perfectly without any special tricks necessary.
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Have fun.
32 Gigs is way more then whatās needed. I donāt leave the drive in the DS so physical size doesnāt really matter. You have to remove it to copy the firmware to the drive using a PC first anyway. I never stored the SD card in my DS MK1 for the same reason. Unless you used the Bridge there was no reason.
Yes I agree that you donāt need that much space and you do have to move it to the PC to extract the files to it. I prefer to have the various firmares available for choice. I also feel it is better to keep the drive plugged in as it is not hurting anything and prevents any noise getting in through the open port. I find it very easy to insert and remove it while the DAC sits in its shelf.
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You can now keep all the firmware versions on a single USB stick and choose the one you want via the menu (and even if the stick has only one on it, you still have to go to the menu and pick it).
But this raises a question: what we refer to as firmware actually consists of two components, the fpga code and another item called āimage.binā. I believe ā and someone please correct me if Iām wrong ā that the fpga piece is the one that people may want to go back and forth with in search of the best SQ on their systems. So what exactly is the other half; maybe the UI? Should one keep only a single version of āimage.binā on the USB stick? What happens if there is more than one (with different names, of course, since a computer OS wonāt allow duplicate file names in a single folder)?
The current UI software only looks for image.bin for possible UI updates. This could change tho I donāt think any change is in the plans. The image.bin file also has the software for the Ethernet/Wi-Fi module and the USB chip. I have image.bin, many FPGA images as well as a lot of other stuff (e.g. audio files) on my USB stick with no ill effects.
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Actually with the USB inserted it would cause more noise then without.
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I canāt imagine why that would be as without a device connected you have unterminated leads. As with the inputs that you use shorting plugs on.
That thumb drive has a computer chip, oscillator and memory. More noise making components. With nothing plugged in there is nothing to create noise.
You are confusing the purpose of the shorting plug. It shunts the data pins to ground to quiet the USB chip inside the DAC.
No, I am not confusing anything I know exactly what the shorting pins do. I know from my own experience that there is no audible difference with the usb drive in or out.
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OK. Donāt see how thatās possible.
I would agree. If itās not being used why keep it plugged in?
A passive USB thumb drive isnāt the same thing as an active USB connection to another device. The connection from the control processor allows the control processor to decide if thereās any power at all to the thumb drive. A thumb drive canāt make noise without power. There is the possibility of the drive acting like an antenna for external noise (or radiating internal DAC noise to the outside world) but this is extremely insignificant compared to any active digital input to the DAC.
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