TAC5112 Codec, basic driver (+free to a good home)

[houtson]

I'm looking for a new codec to use in custom designs of musical effects. I've been using the WM8731 for a while but it's now obsolete and a bit more difficult to find.

I need something that I can get easily, stocked at JLCPCB for assembly and ideally with an ADC that is a bit less noisy than I have found the WM8731.

I've started playing around with the TI TAC5112, it's well spec'd, relatively cheap, pin and register compatible with the better spec'd (but more expensive) TAC5212. It looks like a real next generation chip compared to what I'm used to.

I've built a small basic board to evaluate it and hacked together a basic driver (with some AI help so likely some errors remaining). I have it up and running with the Teensy 4 now using i2s - initial impression is sounds good and I'll get it on a scope in the coming days.

If anyone has had any experience with this family of codec, good or bad, it'd be great to hear. Have you been using any of the more advanced features (the biquad filtering) or the PurePath Console?

I've got one spare populated board, if anyone in the UK would like it for experimentation let me know and I'll post it foc - only condition is that you make some use of it.

Cheers, Paul

 

[h4yn0nnym0u5e]

I did a bit of work on the TAC5212, courtesy of another forum member who may yet comment We got it working in TDM mode, and started getting the PDM mic inputs* working though not with 100% success. It's all gone a bit quiet - I think Real Life intervened. We didn't use the Purepath Console: that appears to need TI approval as a proper developer, and a £300 motherboard, just to get started. Nor did we get as far as messing with the internal filters.

Happy to help out, if you don't get a better offer, though my definition of "making some use" would probably be to collaborate on getting stuff working, then putting it in a box along with other audio stuff until a suitable application appears ... which might be never! I suppose I can always post the remains back to you after we've had our fun. I am in the UK.

*these use the GPxx pins, which it looks as if you haven't tracked

 

[houtson]

Hi h4yn0nnym0u5e,

I did see the other thread on the TAC5212 and TDM, for me I'm just looking for a single codec, probably just stereo in and stereo out.

I sent off a request for approval with TI, let's see what they say. I'm not planning on buying their eval board but I thought might be able to use the tools either directly or cut and paste the i2c while I play about with it.

Did you try the filters - if so any views on latency?

On the GPxx pins, I just tracked one of them (GPIO01), I threw the board together on 2 layers and was running out of track space to keep it the way I wanted it on a breadboard. I couldn't really think what I'd use them for (I think MCLK but anything else..)

Cheers, Paul

 

[h4yn0nnym0u5e]

No, didn't try the filters, so no idea about the latency, and the data sheet doesn't seem to say anything about it.

The GPxx pins can be set up to provide clock and receive data from PDM microphones, plus a bunch of other stuff including simple I/O. As it's an audio board I'd probably have gone for 4-layer anyway, so tracking them out to pads or pins would have been easier.

I take your point about designing what you want. I tend to go overboard on making evaluation / first pass boards as flexible as possible, so I can try out various options without re-spinning the board.