[Sound-open-firmware] Introduction and questions

[chris hermansen]

Thanks very much, Liam and Seppo.  I'm going to mull this over and see if I
can pull an article out of this.

On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 11:54 AM Liam Girdwood <
liam.r.girdwood at linux.intel.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 2018-09-13 at 16:09 -0700, chris hermansen wrote:
> > Liam and list,
> >
>
> + Seppo for audio processing.
>
> > Thanks for the kind reply, this is exciting!
> >
> > On Wed, Sep 12, 2018 at 1:34 PM Liam Girdwood <
> liam.r.girdwood at linux.intel.com
> > > wrote:
> > > Hi Chris,
> > >
> > > On Tue, 2018-09-11 at 14:12 -0700, chris hermansen wrote:
> > > > I write a column on open source and music on https://opensource.com/
> > > > Recently I was at Open Summit and learned of this project.  I
> subsequently
> > > > contacted some folks at Intel to learn more about how this project
> might
> > > > affect users of open source media players.  One of my contacts
> advised
> > > > posting questions to this list.  To avoid spamming the list any more
> than
> > > I
> > > > already have, I'd like to confirm that a few such questions won't be
> a
> > > > supreme annoyance to the list members.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks in advance for any advice.
> > >
> > > No annoyance will occur :) Feel free to ask. The reason I ask for the
> list
> > > is
> > > that the questions and answers will be all searchable.
> > >
> >
> > Starting with a bit of background... there is a class of audio hardware
> and
> > software user out there who uses a configuration like this:
> > laptop, desktop, server appliance...
> > running Linux
> > with a dedicated DAC used for music playback
> > connected to a high quality headphone amplifier or home stereo
> > with an open source music player client/server installed that probably
> > accesses ALSA directly
> > with a bunch of music files, probably FLAC, maybe DSF, probably CD
> quality or
> > higher
> > time on their hands to enjoy this
> > If the computer hardware itself is used for many and various things, then
> > likely the above configuration will want to run most audio traffic
> through
> > Pulse and out the built-in audio speakers / headphone, with only the
> high-
> > quality music being sent to the dedicated DAC directly over ALSA to avoid
> > software mixing, resampling etc.  However if the computer hardware is
> more or
> > less dedicated to music enjoyment, then it seems reasonable to hope that
> the
> > built-in audio hardware could itself be dedicated to the primary music
> > reproduction role, in a high-quality, low noise, low distortion,
> "bit-perfect"
> > fashion.
> >
>
> also low power and low latency.
>
> > So, looking at the sound-open-firmware initiative:
> > is this primarily oriented toward opening up the built-in audio
> processing
> > chain?
>
> Yes, SOF is infrastructure that allows processing components or pipelines
> to be
> constructed.
>
> > or should we expect add-on ADC and DAC hardware?
>
> No, it's intended to work with all standard DAC and ADC hardware.
>
> > is it reasonable to expect really high-performance DAC implementations
> (low
> > noise etc) coming out of this?
>
> No this is a SW/FW project, but it is intended to use high quality DAC HW
> with
> SOF.
>
> Liam
>
> > what kind of other applications might we expect to see?
> > could we expect to see the ability to build a digital crossover with a
> FIR
> > filter to drive high, medium and low frequency power amplifiers and
> speakers?
> > what about other types of digital filtering to compensate for room
> acoustic
> > issues?
> > might we see some type of audio compensation to "pull the music out of
> the
> > head" for headphone users?
> > what about decoding DSF directly, not just PCM?
> > will people build proprietary things on top of it (for example, could
> MQA use
> > it to build an MQA decoder)?
> > That's all I can think of right now; thanks in advance!
> > --
> > Chris Hermansen · clhermansen "at" gmail "dot" com
> >
> > C'est ma façon de parler.
>


-- 
Chris Hermansen · clhermansen "at" gmail "dot" com

C'est ma façon de parler.