[alsa-devel] Infrasonic Quartet

[Pavel Hofman]

Vedran Miletić wrote:
> 2008/11/13 Vedran Miletić <rivanvx at gmail.com>:
>> 2008/11/12 Pavel Hofman <pavel.hofman at insite.cz>:
>>> Vedran Miletić napsal(a):
>>>> 2008/11/12 Pavel Hofman <pavel.hofman at insite.cz>:
>>>>> Vedran Miletić wrote:
>>>>>> Auzen started to distribute one cool new Envy24HT-S card, and it looks
>>>>>> really interesting to me. Specs are awesome, and it also has word
>>>>>> clock on card!
>>>>>> http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/infra_quartet.php
>>>>>> http://www.infra-sonic.com/site/p_PCI_quartet.php
>>>>>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829156007
>>>>>>
>>>>>> According to envy24.svobodno.com, it has:
>>>>>> Infrasonic Quartet      0x3030  0x4953
>>>>>> Envy24HT-S - supported by ALSA
>>>>>> AK4620B (ADC / DAC) - not sure, probably not supported?
>>>>>> AK4112 - not sure either?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> However it has Xilinx on card in similar way as ESI Juli@ does, so
>>>>>> it's probably not a standard Envy24HT-S card.
>>>>>> Any ideas if this card could be supported?
>>>>>>
>>>>> According to the block diagram in the User's Manual the Xilinx plays a
>>>>> major
>>>>> role. The FPGA provides even more functions than in Juli.
>>>>>
>>>>> Without some information from the manufacturer (even if under NDA) the
>>>>> driver will be rather difficult to write. The FPGA is controlled by
>>>>> Envy's
>>>>> GPIOs and their signals would have to be electrically analyzed under
>>>>> Windows
>>>>> driver - a pretty complicated task. It is very different from a regular
>>>>> card
>>>>> with well-documented codecs only where you just need to trace codec pins
>>>>> to
>>>>> corresponding GPIOs.
>>>>>
>>>>> Pavel.
>>>>>
>>>> First off, thanks for answering. I didn't expect anyone to answer,
>>>> since this card isn't this common yet, so it surprised me that it
>>>> caught someone's interest. Good :)
>>>>
>>>> Well, IMHO, this card is as far as Envy24HT-S can go. Sure you can
>>>> have more inputs/outputs, but at 4x4 and without breakout box that's
>>>> it, in terms of features. So, I didn't expect the design to be simple
>>>> at all. Not to mention unsupported DAC/ADC and DIT.
>>>>
>>>> Yet, assuming we get the specifications from Infrasonic/Auzen, would
>>>> you or anyone else be interested in coding a driver?
>>> Well, I could work on the driver, it would be similar to Juli. ice1724.c is
>>> mostly ready for the proprietary clock model. The aforementioned chips have
>>> complete documentation publicly available. If I had the card physically to
>>> trace connection and test (I am no Takashi the wizard :) ) and some
>>> documentation available, it should be viable.
>>>
>>> Honestly I am not going to purchase it myself, I have no other use for it
>>> plus PCI is almost history now. Unfortunately I have not met any PCI-express
>>> card with quality 44.1kHz playback (i.e. dedicated crystal clock).
>>>
>>> Pavel.
>>>
>> I do agree that PCI is almost history nowadays. Better said, it should
>> be. However, I see no viable replacement for Envy24 cards on PCI-E.
>> Oxygen and X-Fi just don't cut it. Anything else?
>>
>> Of course, when it comes to Envy on PCI-E there is Tokyo Style S010
>> DCS-SEV24, however that card doesn't support ASIO and since it uses
>> PCI <--> PCI-E bridge it's performance (in low latency operation) will
>> probably suck. And also it's not aimed at producers, and it doesn't
>> even support ASIO in Windows. I believe there are no MIDI ports
>> either.
>>
>> Therefore, out of all those "new" Envy24-based cards (since that's
>> basically what's available in this price range), Quartet stands out as
>> basically the best producer-oriented solution out there. Even more
>> than that - this is by far the best Envy24 card I have seen so far.
>> Almost like there is nothing to add :-) It's not available where I
>> live (Croatia), but it might be in the future since Auzen started to
>> distribute it, that's why I was interested in possibility of ALSA
>> driver for it appearing.
>>
>> Well, I will contact Infrasonic in the coming days and let you know
>> how it went. Fingers crossed.
>>
>> --
>> Vedran Miletić
>>
> 
> I got a positive reply from Infrasonic, but haven't taken it further
> since I lack coding skills in this regard. Anyone wants to?
> 

Well, I am awaiting our second child which will keep me a bit busy. If 
the timing is not too tight, I think I could find some time to work on 
the driver, provided the manufacturer lends me the card and provides 
reasonable amount of information.

Pavel.