Rockbox Player - Project to design and build a Free/Open hardware audio player

[Falco98]

2:  (snip) ... has it gotten to a point where I can suggest putting a passive RCA output with some better audio output electronics to jack up the audiophile quality of the device...

Please excuse me if I'm mistaking what you are asking, but as far as I can tell this unit includes an analog headphone-out jack, which as far as analog audio goes, should be just about equal in quality to dedicated RCA jacks, and in fact you can pass audio from this to a stereo's RCA input using a ~$5 cable from Wal-Mart or Target (which I do pretty often with my current rockboxed iRiver).  Or is this not what you meant?

[coacharnold]

Well .... not to sound like an audio snob ... but there is a HUGE difference between a 4 dollar cable from wall mart and a set of decent RCA interconnects ( not the least price ... I have a pair of interconnects that I could trade for a new computer)  .... in fact this is one of the areas that DAPs lag behind serious high grade audio ...   we spent a lot of time and effort  developing flac and great digital DAP audio but we are limited to the weak links in the signal chain .....   as I see it here's the weak links .....

the D to A converter in the player itself ... the electronics after the D to A converter ... the headphone plug ..... and the cables after the headphone plug .....  this of course if you  are using your DAP to run through an audio system as opposed to a set of good headphones.... even with expensive headphones .... the weak link is the cable and the plug and the output plug and D to A converter ....on the DAP

These are limitations .... even the best DAPs lack at the end of the signal chain .... 

if your someone who has sent a lot of time, worry,  and money developing home audio .. it's almost not even worth switching to digital audio .....  ( this is why a lot of us use Rock box in the first place .... so we don't have to use lossy formats like Mp3) ....  I have been waiting for a project like this one for a long time .... the possibilities that this community has raised with this new Open Audio player are for  far greater than what Apple of the rest of the digital audio universe has offered us .....
 
I know I'm asking for the Moon here ... but I'm seriously excited by the possibilities of this open sourced player ......

thoughts??

Tim

[Llorean]

These are limitations .... even the best DAPs lack at the end of the signal chain .... 

The iRiver H100 has a digital optical output, so you can attach it to whatever you like and use the DAC and analog electronics in that, letting you choose entirely what sort of signal quality issues to introduce (or not) by what hardware you attach it to.

Digital output is something that has been recommended many times for an 'open' player to run Rockbox on, but there will always be limitations on how many ideas can be included.

[coacharnold]

I think I knew about the digital output in the h100 --- it's something that Iriver was way ahead of the game with .... I wish they still made that player .... I'm glad to hear that some sort of hi fidelity output has at least been talked about .....

thank you for responding ... you folks are doing an incredible job with this project ... please don't think that I'm complaining ....  I just found out that this project existed a week ago ...

T

[casainho]

thank you for responding ... you folks are doing an incredible job with this project ... please don't think that I'm complaining ....  I just found out that this project existed a week ago ...

If you want to help/discover/learn about this hardware and audio quality, try to buy it, use and hack ;-)

http://lyre.sourceforge.net/

[anten44733]

Hi!
I am from Russia
Long enjoyed this player on my phone Motorola E6
Ready to help in the development of the project
In programming I'm not very strong
Can help with electronics

I have a few questions and suggestions

I do not understand why the chosen ARM 2440?
He is an old USB1.1
Maybe only because of the price?

You used Mini2440 ARM9 Board
I found a micro-2440 Board
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110413382725&refid=store&ssPageName=STORE:HTMLBUILDER:SIMPLEITEM

Get on it to run your firmware?
I want to buy this designer
I want to use the CPU module separately to reduce the size of the player
http://cgi.ebay.com/Samsung-S3C2440-ARM9-ARM920T-ARM-Core-Board-Design-Kit_W0QQitemZ120446764043QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item1c0b2fc40b

I propose to use
I am in their designs using LiPol batteries and charge them LTC4054
http://www.linear.com/pc/productDetail.jsp?navId=H0, C1, C1003, C1037, C1078, C1088, P2294

To monitor the battery in collaborative projects using DS2745
http://www.maxim-ic.com/quick_view2.cfm/qv_pk/4994

Radio module for example WRL-08770
 http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8770
Sorry for English

[AndrewT1989]

All I can say is that this is an incredible project that I'm going to continue to follow, and I know I've come across it at a pretty exciting time in its development cycle, when all the major features (most of all sound playback) are now functional, firmware is running without issues, touch screen functionality is implemented, etc. Overall, this progress is wonderful. Find a manufacturer to mass-produce these, and I would happily purchase one myself from Amazon or wherever you'll eventually make it available. I would recommend the color black (especially if you can't manage to slim it down; let's not lose any of those customers that buy based on appearances) and 16GB and 32GB models. This mp3 player, I believe, represents another milestone for the free software movement.

And perhaps you could implement something approximating software crystalization/expand or SRS WOW in a future version of the hardware. 

[anten44733]

Another question
USB stack is implemented?
How to throw music on SD?

[AndrewT1989]

anten44733,

I'm pretty sure the design of the hardware is about 100% finished, including USB. Sound was actually one of the last things that ended up becoming functional, but now it works too. I wish they'd use a smaller battery and do anything else that would result in a thinner final product. The current prototype appears to have the dimensions of a shoebox.

To put music on an SD card, you either sync to it with your favorite music program or simply copy and paste the files to the drive. I actually like the idea of customizing the mp3 player's memory for a change, although 32gb SD cards are still too expensive at this point.

[anten44733]

AndrewT1989

Hi!
You are the developer of this project?
Where did you get this information?

[Domonoky]

No, USB currently doesnt work on this plattform. And there are also many rough parts still left in the firmware.
For example plugins are still not enabled, because noone has done the neccessary work to make all keymappings for them. And while playing sound, i hear many interferences which may be reduced if someone does the neccessary work to optimize this. There is probably much more work left todo.

And about the Hardware: There is no battery used currently, because the mini2440 draws too much power to make this usefull. The case is still in development and i dont know the current status of the Harddisk extension board. 

So saying that this hardware is 100% finished, i a little bit exaggerated. :-)

[JdGordon]

I finally got openocd going and I can telnet in and run init_2440, but when I try "source prog_boot.txt" it fails...

> source prog_boot.txt
requesting target halt and executing a soft reset
target state: halted
target halted in ARM state due to breakpoint, current mode: Supervisor
cpsr: 0xf00000d3 pc: 0x00000000
MMU: disabled, D-Cache: disabled, I-Cache: disabled
Flash Manufacturer/Device: 0x00bf 0x234b
flash 'cfi' found at 0x00000000
auto erase enabled
not enough working area available(requested 32768, free 4032)
not enough working area available(requested 16384, free 4032)
not enough working area available(requested 8192, free 4032)
not enough working area available(requested 4096, free 4032)
error writing to flash at address 0x00000000 at offset 0x00000000 (-902)

called at file "command.c", line 473
called at file "prog_boot.txt", line 12
called at file "embedded:startup.tcl", line 89
called at file "embedded:startup.tcl", line 91
called at file "embedded:startup.tcl", line 93



any ideas?

[JdGordon]

woo! got it fixed... commented out the working space line in the config and now we are good to go.
So, how much of a pipe dream is it to get a SMB or NFS client on this for storage?

[JdGordon]

any ideas where the bug for the SD speed is? speed is crazy!

also, why the hell is the only button that is accessable with the lcd mounted the reset button :< is http://lyre.sourceforge.net/?q=content/keypad-mini2440 supported in svn already?

[casainho]

Hello :-)

I have some good news :-) -- I printed the first verison of enclosure for it. I want to use the Mini2440 with Rockbox as home DAP. My enclosure have input for power supply and SD card. Outputs audio on jack. Touchscreen is used for user input.

I am working now on improving the 3D design on the case and I hope to print a better version tomorrow, mybe the final one, I hope :-)

Some pictures:




See all pictures here:
http://lyre.sourceforge.net/?q=content/my-first-3d-print-mini2440-enclosure

Me and Domonoky, we both have have Mini2440 and a 3D printer :-) -- but I can print the enclosure if anyone needs it, PM me.