OpenWrt Forum Archive

Topic: airmusic NW11 - AR9331/32M RAM/8M Flash/Audio Codec

The content of this topic has been archived between 28 Mar 2018 and 7 May 2018. There are no obvious gaps in this topic, but there may still be some posts missing at the end.

domtor0

My problem was solved using:

http://www.foobar2000.org/   V1.3.7

Now I can hear perfectly streaming radio

Wow, cool! Would you like to share you openwrt build configuration?

We have a Kickstarter campaign ongoing, featuring a modular AR9331-based board called "Domino.IO", with an additional I2S module that may be interesting for this kind of audio applictions:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/70 … for-things

We will release all material as Open Hardware and Open Source, including the U-Boot, latest OpenWRT and corresponding audio drivers.
Here is a direct link to a video demonstrating music playback:

https://d2pq0u4uni88oo.cloudfront.net/a … _high.mp4?

Hi
I've got the one branded soundmate (M1).
I know it's probably a long shot, but I am having issues with my QNAP NAS (using Qairplay) to communicate with the device.
The app does see it, but no stream is coming out of the M1.

I spoke with techies at QNAP and they don't know what the problem might be... I have no similar device to make sure if it's a problem with the M1 or not.

That being said my iphone can stream through the M1 just fine.


Is there anything I could do to log into the M1 and see if any incoming stream is coming into it?


thanks
Steve

Steve,

The username is "root" and password is "ifconfig", at least if it is the same with the airmusic. You can log in using telnet. When you type "top" you will see which processes are running, and you can monitor if this changes when you connect with your QNAP. The music renderer is "shairport", which is an open source copy of the apple airport. Perhaps that is the problem.

Aldo

Aldo,
thank you very much. I was able to get into the unit using telnet. I did that again this morning and you are correct.
When streaming with the Iphone I see that "hairtunes" comes up using a fair amount of CPU while when streaming with Qairplay that service does not seem to be up. In any case you were right and it seems to be using "Shairport".

I failed to mention I tried several firmwares (1.0.0.5 that came with it and the 1.0.0.2 that some people have good success with). EIther way, I see no difference.


I took screenshots of my telnet session if you care to take a look: http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?fi … 7913648833

And, is there anything I can do to try and fix this?

thanks again!!

Steve

(Last edited by stephenm on 3 May 2015, 19:52)

Hi
I have sound mate m1 and i want to install MPD.
Do you know how to do it? because in busybox i cant install anything sad
Thanks for help.

stephenm wrote:

Aldo,
thank you very much. I was able to get into the unit using telnet. I did that again this morning and you are correct.
When streaming with the Iphone I see that "hairtunes" comes up using a fair amount of CPU while when streaming with Qairplay that service does not seem to be up. In any case you were right and it seems to be using "Shairport".

I failed to mention I tried several firmwares (1.0.0.5 that came with it and the 1.0.0.2 that some people have good success with). EIther way, I see no difference.


I took screenshots of my telnet session if you care to take a look: http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?fi … 7913648833

And, is there anything I can do to try and fix this?

thanks again!!

Steve


Steve you use the firmware of the M1, I use the firmware of Airmusic. The implementation of shairport seems to be different. You have "/usr/bin/hairtunes" I get "/bin/newshair" when I use airplay on my Ipad. But when I use DNLA from my Linux computer I get "nrender" twice taking 35% and 15% of the CPU. You also have nrender, but it does not consume much CPU.

You could try the firmware from the Airmusic given in a previous post, but I'm not sure that will help. What kind of protocol is your NAS using, is it DLNA?

Aldo

(Last edited by Aldo.Dekker on 9 May 2015, 07:16)

kaiser wrote:

Well it's not real Hame but it's clone. But has advantage of double RAM (32MB). WHOSA-Mini-Portable-3G-4G-MiFi-Wireless-N-USB-WiFi-Hotspot-JU-Router-AP-150Mbps-Wlan

Did you got to work the Hame-clone with the USB sound card?

(Last edited by winopener on 12 May 2015, 16:03)

Can somebody please explain what is the benefit of using I2S over just connecting sound card via USB?

Usually external USB audio devices are preferred by audio fans because then they can choose sound card with DAC that they prefer.

And what it mean to add an audio codec? Is that also some hardware chip that is connected to I2S pins of AR9331?

Music Box devices like Soundmate M1-M2/Airmusic NW11/ IB-MP401Air should all be based on similar/same hw and include a stereo DAC that possibly in all cases is the CL Wolfson WM8918 (a chip that can also be found on some mobile phones and on Arduino Yún). I analyzed a bit these low cost devices after purchasing one of them, as they look surprisingly functional, performant and stable even if so cheap and limited in CPU or flash/RAM memory resources.

WM8918 provides analog output to the 3.5” stereo jack socket with ground loop noise rejection feedback and possibly via direct galvanic connection, without inductive components that introduce noise and distortion. Find characteristics here:
http://www.cirrus.com/en/pubs/proDatash … 8_v4.1.pdf

It can be compared against other DACs by analyzing the respective tech specifications.

WM8918 includes many controls that I suspect the Music Box will not handle due to hw/sw limitations (e.g., features like analog/digital audio inputs/mics, signal level, volume control, soft mute, parametric equalizer, programmable dynamic range control, anti-clip, anti-pops, additional output, etc.). WM8918 is natively interfaced to the Qualcomm Atheros AR9331 SoC via I2S digital audio interface. A user-mode driver provides simple write/ioctl system calls to pipe data downstream to the I2S kernel driver, including basic functionalities to control the DAC. I noticed that different firmwares are available and some of them are also offering the Linux ALSA driver, which provides a standardized range of control features to many interfaced devices (but maybe only driving external USB audio cards, while the WM8918 DAC might still keep the i2s direct interface).

While the WM8918 accepts up to 48-96kHz/24-bit sample rate (if I am not wrong), in general high-end DACs have better characteristics, provide additional channels and many more controls. Anyway, on the iPhone the AirPlay interface streams two channels (stereo) at 16-bit, 44100 Hz in Apple Lossless format. High-resolution files are downsampled to this rate on the iPhone. I also suspect that the shairplay sw player and related sw audio backends are linked to 2/16/44.1 (so, fixed to CD quality, like on shairport open sources). Besides, shairplay might take almost all CPU when playing from the iPhone and I doubt that it will be able to allow increased resolutions and can efficiently support additional user/kernel mode controls (the high CPU usage that I register is affected by a modification I did on my device, editing airrestart and adding nice -n -13 to shairplay in order to reduce the risk of buffer unnderruns as I also use -b 75 option for increased iPhone promptness on pause/resume controls; in any case, even leaving the shairplay parameters unaltered, considerable CPU is used). I have not tested shairplay through the ALSA interface and I might suspect that the additional CPU cycles of this software layer could conflict with the CPU sometimes required by other sw programs included in openwrt (httpd, ushare, etc.). I could not find shairplay sources in the internet BTW, even if most probably forked from shairport open sources (illegal if true?).

Finally, the hardware also provides a stereo SPDIF interface natively managed by the AR9331 SoC and supporting up to 48 KHz/32-bit sampling clock, which can be connected to an external digital amplifier/DAC (in my opinion SPDIF bypasses the WM8918).

Argh FFS. 2 min after posting o noticed the small tag on last photo in post nr 1
Sorry for inconvenience.

Hello all
I have somehow bricked my device. Flashed and it worked for a few hours. and now suddenly no WiFi and system does not reflash from USB anymore.
Several talk of a guide for soldering serial-to-USB cable to the PCB. I cant seem to find this guide but would really like to get telnet access to the system and see what it is doing and possibly force a new flash.
Can anybody make or send med guide on where to solder cables to the PCB and schematics for rx tx.

(Last edited by polpot on 16 Jun 2015, 21:55)

Mine (Soundmate M1) is internally diferent from the photos in post nr 1, even if the sockets on the external box are the same. Characteristics are similar, but RAM and Flash are doubled (8 MB Flash (Winbond 25Q64FVSIG) replaced by 250128FVSG and 32 MB RAM (Winbond W9425G6JH-5) replaced by A3R12E40CBF-8E).

Internal components look the same as http://www.mobile01.com/topicdetail.php … t=4349138, even if the external box is the M1 one (not the M2 in the photo).

Notice that the mainboard U-M12-V1.01 only includes the external sockets, some passive components and a power supply circuit, while all active components are in the very small 45x28x6mm plugin named Y-0176 (Qualcomm Atheros AR9331-AL3A Wifi SoC, socket for external antenna (mine does not have the socket soldered but only the two rails), Wolfson WM8918G DAC, Zentel A3R12E40CBF-8E 64MB-512Mb DDRII SDRAM, Winbond 250128FVSG 16MB-128Mb Flash). It looks to be a Longsys NW64: http://www.longsys.com/uploadfile/userf … 04700.pdf, http://longsys.en.ecplaza.net/wifi-ap-m … 44175.html

The two boards are interlinked through a 2x13 pin connector. Pinout could possibly follow VD-WFM02P description at http://wenku.baidu.com/view/a9d20075bcd … 1?fr=prin. It includes an unconnected Ethernet port, I2S bus for output (and also for input, unused), JTAG pins, USB, analog stereo audio out, 9 GPIO ports and a UART serial interface at pin 10 (RX), 11 (TX) and 12 (GND).

Hello

I am only getting jibberish when connected via putty serial, com7, 115200 (see below)

Does anybody have a hint to what i am doing wrong? I have tried all available character coding.

This is what is output to putty console:

                                               ▒▒▒▒▒U▒;!!▒▒▒▒w[}e▒▒▒▒▒▒e{▒▒R▒ӻ▒!#▒3!▒▒▒▒▒▒K▒▒5=7▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒33▒▒3'=/▒-▒▒▒▒▒}_▒▒▒▒▒=
                                  5▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒59!9!#▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒s'=/▒▒▒▒▒e{▒▒UFK▒▒▒'▒5#-#▒▒▒▒[▒▒▒▒▒▒5'▒▒a▒▒▒▒5'▒▒u▒▒▒5'▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒늊▒▒▒A5#5A-#--='-
                                                           5▒▒▒▒▒c!▒='-7▒=77▒-#▒s'=/▒▒U-#1▒3-57▒=77▒▒c!▒='-7▒=77▒-#▒s'=/▒▒U-#1▒3-57▒=77▒▒▒˚▒꿟3▒931▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒M▒鶿A5▒▒▒Mѩ▒▒▒5/▒▒▒5/▒▒▒}!;!!-#1▒-#▒▒▒59!#7▒▒nnۅ!-#1▒-%=15▒=▒▒3▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒뿿▒U#9!%-#1▒i5'▒m%=15▒▒▒▒▒c!▒5#!1/▒;3353!759!%-!#▒▒gKe}▒u[[a[▒▒▒▒▒%▒[uYuW▒;!=▒!▒9!5▒s=-'57▒!▒5595▒;!!9%7▒▒=▒/7▒!▒7=5▒3-▒▒▒▒▒M▒▒▒;jJ▒
                                          ▒#▒▒Mѩ▒;jJ▒
                                                     ▒#▒▒FQ▒-#1▒/7▒535▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒/▒=▒

probably you:
a) used wrong adapter
b) didn't connected gnd

show us a picture of your usb2ttl converter.

Hmm gives same result when connected directly to serial port on my motherboard.
I did connect gnd. to pin 5 as per schematics for serial port interface.

polpot wrote:

Hello

I am only getting jibberish when connected via putty serial, com7, 115200 (see below)

Polpot,

I had a similar output when I did not connect tx an rx correctly. The USB serial adapter TX should be connected with the RX from the device. By the way which device do you own an AirMusic or an M1?

Aldo

When i reverse my current setup, i do not get any output at all.
When i disconnect the Rx (from device perspective) i get same jibberish output.
Perhaps the device is just broken, it just seems strange that it outputs data at all then?

It is an NW11.

Is firmware same for MW1 and M1 devices?

My device is labeled "SoundMate M1" with currently using firmware 1.0.05-A39(A.01) but it is producing audio clicking and hissing both while playing audio and while just in stand by.

Which firmware do you use?

(Last edited by valentt on 30 Jun 2015, 08:17)

Anybody installed an external antenna for this device? I think the internal one is very poor.

Hi all
i managed to get access via new adapter and putty. in progress of uploading formware.
Just a little info on accessing via pythpn script (at least in Windows). Use python 2.7. 3xx will fail on the script due to type-checking. Also, install pyserial package after python, it wont run without.


bagi wrote:
Aldo.Dekker wrote:

To update on my progress of the work on 2 January. I made a mistake in the copying address as you can read in my previous post. I did it again and now the unit starts. But it seems that I damaged my ART file in the process because I get an error message during boot.

ath: phy0: Unable to initialize hardware; initialization status: -5
ath9k ar933x_wmac: failed to initialize device
ath9k: probe of ar933x_wmac failed with error -5

So now I need an ART file to repair the unit. Can anyone send me a copy of his ART file? In the post http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/restore_art_partition they give instructions how you can make a dump of the art file.

I hope someone can help me.

I have sucessfully restored an Airmusic device with the help of the pyhon script you have also used (but with the right parameters):

sudo python ubootwrite.py --verbose --serial=/dev/ttyUSB0 --write=./image.bin --addr=0x81000000
sudo screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200
erase 0x9f020000 +0x7C0000
cp.b 0x81000000 0x9f020000 0x7C0000
bootm 9f020000
You can try to restore your ART Partition with the image I have copied from the /dev/mtd4 of my device: 0x0000007f0000-0x000000800000 : "art"

Download it from here: https://app.box.com/s/4qr26v0z8dxg6gxq2a5m