The German audio hardware manufacturer Abacus Electronics has created a new Raspberry Pi HAT sound card. Setting itself apart from other sound cards with its two separate master clocks, a precise voltage regulator and its 4 way multi-layer design.
Clocking
The AroioDAC’s two independent master clock chips are splitting duties with one only handling the 44,1kHz sample rates (e.g. standard CD quality) and the other only handling all 48kHz sample rates(e.g. 96kHz or 192kHz high resolution files). Thanks to the precision in frequency and the high stability of the sample rates, jitter and unwanted modulations are reduced to an absolute minimum. A small, blue LED indicates which of the master clocks is active.
Power Supply
To avoid any inconsistencies from the power supply, the three important components of the board are all isolated with high precision voltage regulators made by Analog Devices.
To ensure a steady and reliable power supply, the conductor board is designed as a four layer PCD (each with its own copper layer for mass potential and supply lines). Additionally, all areas of the board are buffered by generously-sized condensators.
Technical Details
- Compatible with Raspberry Pi (A+/B+/2/3/3B+/4)
- Two isolated, individual high precision master clocks 44,1- an 48kHz sample rates
- Three isolated voltage regultors for analog, digital and clocks
- 4-fach-Multilayer PCB for optimal power supply
- L-/R-Cinch ports, IR receiver
- Splittable power supply for AVDD (low pass filter for the power supply to the analog portion of the mixed signal device) and Clocks as well as DVDD (low pass filter for the power supply to the digital portion of the mixed signal device)
- Separate 8-Pin-GPIO-Header for audio connections
- ID-EEPROM for HAT-ID
- Full software support by Max2Play
- SMD and assembly in Germany
