miniDSP Q3 - 2019 Newsletter

Hello Visitor, 

Hoping you're all doing well,

For this month's newsletter, we're happy to announce a new DSP headphone amplifier, support for Dirac Live 2.0 and a round of updates for the SHD Series. 

We look forward to hearing back from you so feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

DevTeam

 IL-DSP, a tiny DSP Headphone Amp

Introducing the IL-DSP (In Line DSP), a USB headphone amplifier with integrated DSP. Featuring a full ten bands of powerful, flexible parametric EQ in a tiny bus-powered package, the IL-DSP is the mobile audiophile's perfect companion for laptop, tablet, or smartphone (macOS, Windows and Android supported). The inbuilt microphone for voice-calling ensures maximum mobile flexibility.

Housed in a light-weight aluminum enclosure, the IL-DSP sports impeccable audio specifications of 120 dB signal-to-noise ratio and 0.0007% THD+N (mid-gain). 30 mW power output per channel is ample for IEMs and most portable headphones. High-resolution PCM and DSD formats are both supported. The ten bands of parametric EQ are configured with miniDSP's easy-to-use computer interface. The fully adjustable peaking and shelving filters allow adjustment of the audio band from the narrowest to the broadest control ranges, with up to 16 dB boost or cut in each band. This combination of DSP power, careful selection of high-quality components and a 32-bit audiophile DAC combine to create an unparalleled portable headphone experience.

Priced at 99USD, the IL-DSP is available from our webshop with shipments starting this week! Make sure to check out our product page for more details. 

 Dirac Live 2.0 release

Dirac Live 2.0 support for miniDSP products has arrived! We're extremely excited to announce Dirac Live 2.0 support for our 2-channel platforms: the SHD Series, DDRC-22 Series and the DDRC-24. And the best part of all? No cost - Nada, Zero, Zilch, Rien, Niente. A completely Free of Charge upgrade!

While it did take us a lot of engineering resources to make it happen, we're forever grateful to the amazing support we've received from the whole community so here is our way to thank you! Hoping you like it.

How to upgrade? Go to the user downloads section and grab the Dirac Live 2.0 build. Note that you will require to update both plugin/firmware and we've assembled a user manual addendum specific to Dirac Live 2.0. Due to the lack of support for the "Custom" channel assignment in Dirac 2.0, we still require a fair amount of work to perform a similar switch for multichannel. Stay tuned for coming updates!

 SHD Series update

While not ready for primetime, we're indeed actively working for an exciting new streaming option for the SHD series. Once again a free upgrade. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, quite a few of you mentioned that Wi-Fi support would simplify integration of the SHD into your system. We agree! 
Starting from the 19th of August, SHD and SHD Studios are shipping with a free Wifi USB dongle so you can easily connect your unit to your existing Wifi network. An updated manual is to be released in a few days. Here is the screenshot of Volumio with support for the USB Wifi dongle. 

Also newsworthy is a forthcoming update to Volumio with improvements for stability issues. We're expecting this to go live via Volumio's OTA (Over the Air) update next week. Stay tuned to our forum for this announcement and feel free to contact our support team if you have any questions. 

 AVB powered DSP Toolbox

Got a multiroom configuration? Looking to stream high quality and synchronized audio from your mac OS to multiple end points via low latency Ethernet?
miniDSP's AVB solutions might be your ticket!

We're excited to release DSP support for all our PoE+ powered AVB products including the SPK-4P (Powered speaker), NDAC-2 (Networked DAC) and NPW-2 (Networked amplifier). For more information on this new release, check out the SPK-4P user manual. 

 Other News

Firmware/Plugin updates
- A newer version of miniDSP's USB audio ASIO driver and OSx DFU upgrade tool has just been released for all USB audio platforms (SHD/DDRC-24/2x4HD/UMA series/USBStreamer/MCHStreamer/UDIO-8/UDAC-8). Check out the user downloads for more details.
- The HA-DSP received a firmware upgrade to solve a battery charging issue (firmware bug on charging chipset). Please update your unit with the latest firmware.
- The MCHStreamer received a firmware update modiying the DSD pin out assignment and adding a PCM/DSD GPIO pin for easier system integration. 

CDSP 8x12 DL Review
Long time customer ErinH is no stranger to miniDSP products, having used them very early on for car audio tuning. As an active member of the DIY Mobile Audio community, we're excited to see his complete review of the CDSP 8x12DL. A big shout out to all other active members of the Mobile Audio community who are sharing valuable information of their experience with this powerful processor here and here. To learn more about the CDSP 8x12DL, check out our product page.

REW 5.20 updates
The Room EQ Wizard (REW) feature list is growing so fast that it is hard to keep track! Notable in the latest REW beta build is automatic discovery of the EARS headphone measurement jig and support for dual calibration files. Check out our application note to learn how REW can help with headphone equalization.