Choosing the right kit

[Twkaudio]

Hi, I am looking for a little help with choosing a dev kit to get started with making an audio interface with the features I want.

After ripping apart a few of my favorite interfaces I already own I noticed that they were all using xmos chips (well at least the 3 interfaces that I actually liked) this is what led me to check out what xcore had to offer as well as finding this site.

Since then I've been zeroing in on the Xcore-200 multichannel audio kit but I want to make sure that it is the right choice.

Ultimately what i would like besides the typical audio interface capabilities is the ability to pass HQ audio (min: 96 kHz/24 bit) in and out of the host machine and use DSP to affect the signals in and out from from the host. I've been dabbling in creating my own vst's and would like a homebrew device that I can use to power my programs.

I apologize if my post isn't descriptive enough, I additionally am a novice at this. however what I'm looking to build is basically something similar to this: The Apollo Audio Arrow

[akp]

Yes, that's the best kit to get you up and running quickly.

[CousinItt]

Hi Twkaudio,

I think it boils down to whether you are happy with a) the choice of audio circuitry in the audio kit and b) its lack of flexible external digital i/o. For example, it would be difficult to provide a user interface similar to the Arrow box with the audio kit. If neither of these things is a problem then the audio kit would be a good choice.

As an alternative, you could look at using the general purpose explorer kit with an audio interface board such as a hifiberry dac+adc. The explorer kit exposes a lot of I/O so you could add or replace audio interfaces and other gear as your project develops.

[CousinItt]

...actually hifiberry boards might not be the best choice as they don't provide schematics, but others are available.