Rockbox General > Rockbox General Discussion
Rockbox as a USB audio device?
thomaspf:
Hi,
I am wondering whether there has been a discussion about using your rockbox device as an external audio device to your PC. I am a happy owner of two H120 but recently I have been toying with the idea of getting a Headamp Pico for use with my laptop.
The crazy thing is that almost all components in that external USB dac/amplifier also exist in the most portable media players.
Today Rockbox only implements the code for a USB mass storage device but I am wondering whether it would not be possible to also implement the code to make a portable media player appear as a standard USB audio device. The sound quality you would get from almost any portable player would be a lot higher than from the built-in sound cards in many computers.
I can not code this but I am wondering what you think?
Cheers
Thomas
saratoga:
--- Quote from: thomaspf on March 29, 2008, 09:21:40 PM ---Hi,
I am wondering whether there has been a discussion about using your rockbox device as an external audio device to your PC. I am a happy owner of two H120 but recently I have been toying with the idea of getting a Headamp Pico for use with my laptop.
The crazy thing is that almost all components in that external USB dac/amplifier also exist in the most portable media players.
--- End quote ---
Sure, but they're little different then the parts already in your laptop. DAP DACs and laptop DACs are very similar, both in design and performance. If you need an amp for your laptop, you'd almost certainly need it for your DAP as well.
--- Quote from: thomaspf on March 29, 2008, 09:21:40 PM ---Today Rockbox only implements the code for a USB mass storage device but I am wondering whether it would not be possible to also implement the code to make a portable media player appear as a standard USB audio device.
--- End quote ---
Theres the beginnings of a USB audio driver for rockbox. You'd have to finish working on it, but its certainly possible.
--- Quote from: thomaspf on March 29, 2008, 09:21:40 PM --- The sound quality you would get from almost any portable player would be a lot higher than from the built-in sound cards in many computers.
--- End quote ---
Better then a few built in cards, but not most. DAPs have low hiss because they're battery powered, but thats about all they do well, and if you ran it off a USB cable, you'd likely lose even that advantage since you'd be running off the PC power supply. They are, after all, built out of what is essentially a low end PC DAC.
Llorean:
And, as a note, this isn't a feature the H100 series will ever see, since its UMS mode is hardware controlled, and not something subject to Rockbox's internal USB stack.
thomaspf:
Bummer...
Edit: Now that I thought of it a bit more. Would it be possible to write a USB audio host stack? In that case you could use the media player as a source for external USB audio devices. That would be pretty nice too.
Cheers
Thomas
AlexP:
All the H100 can be is a UMS device. This is a hardware limitation. If your external usb device can read a USB hard disk, then sure.
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