[mgalusha]

Mike,
Any news on your updates?

I haven't had much time lately to build things and I'm having ankle surgery on the 16th, so I won't be at my bench for at least 6 weeks.   It will be quite some time before I have a chance to do much more with mine.

[jkeny]

Take care of your health Mike, it's the most important thing we have - best of luck with the surgery.

[HT cOz]

How is the internal DAC in the IO Box?

[jkeny]

Hi Mike,
I hope the ankle surgery went well & you're making a speedy recovery, listening to your iobox streaming your choice of video/audio off the network!

Hi Jim,
Can you confirm the same HDMI chip is used in the IOBox - SILICON IMAGE SIL9134CTU?
I'm closer to buying this box but need to know I can tap multichannel I2S from this chip.

[Vlad]

Hi,

I have couple general questions about this system - what h/w does one need to setup this system besides iobox? Can it play music from NAS? Does it need some kind of server running on it (like squeezecenter)? It looks like a good solution, but after reading this thread, I still don't see how it is better than a squeezebox (other than 24/96 support, but they might be releasing the new model  soon)? It needs some kind of display in addition to the iobox, so it would add to the overall cost.
Also, there was a talk about using linear 12V external PS for this unit, but it might have local switching regulators on board negating this mod. Can somebody with an open unit check this?

Jim, why do you think it is better than Transporter?

Thanks,
Vlad

[JDUBS]

Hi,

I have couple general questions about this system - what h/w does one need to setup this system besides iobox? Can it play music from NAS? Does it need some kind of server running on it (like squeezecenter)? It looks like a good solution, but after reading this thread, I still don't see how it is better than a squeezebox (other than 24/96 support, but they might be releasing the new model  soon)? It needs some kind of display in addition to the iobox, so it would add to the overall cost.
Also, there was a talk about using linear 12V external PS for this unit, but it might have local switching regulators on board negating this mod. Can somebody with an open unit check this?

Jim, why do you think it is better than Transporter?

Thanks,
Vlad

Vlad

Not sure it is better than a Transporter, but at 1/10th the price, I think it does really well and is the ONLY network transport capable of 24/192 (that I know of).  Transporter can't do that.  Plus its available right now...unlike the 24/96 capable squeezebox.

Yep, running off a NAS is how I use it.  You don't need special software for it to work.  I think just a samba server will work fine.

As I noted earlier in this thread, you need a computer to do the install (over your network), you also need some way to control it.  I use a Dell Mini 9 or an iPhone, but there are other ways.

Again, for $200 +/-, I think its a great transport and one with unique (thusfar) capabilities in terms of handling 24/192 material....if this is important to you at all.

I haven't progressed too far with the ps mods, but they are coming....just got side tracked.

-Jim

[Vlad]

Does the PC used to load iobox have to be Linux or it can be Windows?
What about the control PC (dell mini9)? I assume that this control PC is running Firefox with Minion plugin that plays the music?

In Ashok's picture couple messages back it shows a monitor connected to iobox (sitting on top of preamp) - does it replace the need for a control PC? Would the supplied iobox remote be used for this instead?

It looks like a good solution and I would like to try it myself (first with built-in DAC and HDD, then upgrading to external DAC and NAS), but I am a little put off by all the s/w involved and the NMT forum is daunting for me. I am comfortable with h/w mods, but not Linux/networking stuff.

Thanks,
Vlad

[mgalusha]

I point my ioBox at a standard windows SMB share, you don't need Unix services for windows, which some of the sites will tell you. I have no display on mine and use firefox/minion from an ancient laptop, seems to work fine though I haven't fired it up in a while due to lack of time in my music room.

[JDUBS]

Does the PC used to load iobox have to be Linux or it can be Windows?
What about the control PC (dell mini9)? I assume that this control PC is running Firefox with Minion plugin that plays the music?

In Ashok's picture couple messages back it shows a monitor connected to iobox (sitting on top of preamp) - does it replace the need for a control PC? Would the supplied iobox remote be used for this instead?

It looks like a good solution and I would like to try it myself (first with built-in DAC and HDD, then upgrading to external DAC and NAS), but I am a little put off by all the s/w involved and the NMT forum is daunting for me. I am comfortable with h/w mods, but not Linux/networking stuff.

Thanks,
Vlad

Vlad, if you read this thread in it entirety (not even), you'll see that I use a Windows PC for the install of MPD and the control via Minion.

[mgalusha]

Now that I'm back on my feet (sort of - boot/crutches) I had a chance to hack on my ioBox a little bit. I picked up a SATA/CF adapter this week and an 8GB CF card. They worked perfectly unlike the Crucial 32GB SSD I had previously purchased. So, I installed the latest firmware and NMT apps on the newly formatted drive only to find that MPD binaries are no longer available and of course no longer installable via the NMT community software installer due to a GPL2 licensing conflict. They are working on this and it's supposed to be available again soon.

That of course pissed me off, without MPD the NMT is a pretty lousy platform for playing music. I certainly didn't want to wait for the licensing conflict to be resolved so a bit of searching via Google turned up a site where the NMT specific version was available for download. This meant that I had to do a manual install but it wasn't bad and thankfully the ioBox had remembered my network settings and could still see my music server, so once MPD was installed I recreated the symbolic link pointing to the share that was pointed at my music server. In my case the music server is just a windows box and the same one that runs my Squeezeboxen.

Once I was satisfied I had the ioBox back to where it was before, minus the sound of a hard drive spinning, it was time to fit a decent jack for the SPDIF output. I drilled a hole in the back and mounted an Amphenol isolated 75ohm BNC jack. The stock jack is part of a bundle of nickel plated RCA jacks and it was not feasible to try and remove it. I simply cut the center pin, heated the solder joint and removed it. Tracing the circuit as much as possible (very difficult, 6 layer board) I determined it had a series inductor right at the jack. In the excellent thread by Pat of Analog Research Techonlogy he presents some measurements showing the improvement of a Squeezebox 3 SPDIF output after removing the series inductor on the output. This was a very similar setup so I decided it had to go. The new BNC jack was wired to the board via some RG-179 75ohm miniature coax and keeping the terminations as short as possible with very little of the center conductor exposed outside the shield.

Results? Well, auditory memory is always suspect and because of the nature of this I could not A/B it but the overall result seems good. I'd say improved harmonics in the midrange and a smoother top end but with appropriate bite on instruments like a trumpet. Note that I'm still using an older Musical Fidelity A324 DAC, which has a maximum input of 24/96. I can say that playing 24/96 files the sound is pretty dang good, certainly better than I expected. For the cost of this (< $10) I believe it was worth the effort. Of course if you don't use digital cables with a BNC connector it's probably less worth doing but in my case I have BNC terminated cables.

Time to dig around in the parts bins and see if I have suitable parts on hand for a 12V linear supply. I am feeding the stock switcher via a Felix type filter, which usually has a positive influence on switch mode power supplied.

mike

[mgalusha]

More listening and I'm certain replacing the RCA with a BNC was worth it. Unfortunately this MF DAC is showing it's age. 24/96 sounds pretty nice but it's irritating on 16/44.1. Pfui.

[ashok]

Very interesting Mike. Any chance of some pictures, specially with respect to that inductor you removed?

Thanks.

[mgalusha]

Ashok,

Unfortunately I didn't have the camera down stairs and traversing the stairs is still quite a bit of work on crutches. I need to photograph some transformers I have, so when I bring the camera down I'll take the ioBox back apart. The inductor is a really tiny SMT part and is pretty easy to find. Just do a continuity check from the center pin of the RCA SPDIF output. It's right next to where the pin is soldered into the board. There is also a small cap going from output to ground right next to it. I left that in place for now.

mike

[jkeny]

Hey Mike,
Good to see you're back on your feet! It's been a while since I checked into this forum -so just catching up.
Great write-up on the trials & tribulations of modding the io-box. Were you going to run this into a Buffalo?

I never did buy the io-box, instead I just ordered a Musiland Monitor 01 US DAC - does 24/192 over USB Async & only $80 - some good reviews just beginning to appear. I went for it as I was attracted to the underlying technology & what they did with it - mainly the Xilinx FPGA which is the heart of the unit & handles low jitter clock synthesis & asynch duties via a EZ-USB controller chip

[mgalusha]

If I ever get my Buffalo built I will. I did pick up a used KECES 131.1, which is 24/192 capable but haven't tried it yet, too many other things going on. One of these days.

[Ustasa]

Has anybody yet tried a linear PSU ?