Getting More Out of Your Maui System.

Previously, I wrote a blog on What AMD offers the HTPC customer. It covered the MSI Media Live Diva platform (MSI 7411), which is produced in accordance with the AMD HTPC motherboard specification that we affectionately call “Maui.” I discussed the audio and video capabilities of the platform and some of the features that make it a little more unique in the HTPC space.

Today, I would like to offer a little more insight to this platform and show you just how much this platform can be customized. AMD, D2Audio and MSI worked hard to deliver a unique solution to the market. However, the work did not stop just because the platform was released. We have continued to innovate on this platform and we are quickly approaching the next phase of this solution.

One of the unique properties of the D2Audio designed chip is that it is programmable. Therefore, the firmware (f/w) of the audio cards can be updated to add new features and functionality. In some respects, this is similar to how a motherboard BIOS can be updated to add new CPU support or additional functionality.  With respect to the D2Audio chip, it can be customized to overcome the weakness of a given speaker, customized frequency response curves, customized crossover frequencies, etc. 

Well, D2Audio has taken the next step and is bringing some of this programmability to life to help enable our System Integrator partners to take full advantage of many features of the D2Audio DAE-3 chip. At the time of this posting, it has yet to be determined how to make some of these things available to the DIY user, but it is under discussion.  What I am hoping you take away from this blog is just how powerful and robust this unique platform is and how much it can be customized to meet a user’s needs.

In this particular case, words won’t quite do it justice so I am including some screen shots of a D2Audio tool called Audio Canvas^TM.  Audio Canvas^TM is an application that has the “buttons and knobs” that control the programmability features of the D2Audio chip. 

Now, enough talk; let’s take a deeper look inside the “Maui” platform’s audio features enabled by Audio Canvas^TM.  Below is a view of the Audio Canvas^TM control panel. It represents the signal flow of audio though the DAE-3 chip and the control blocks that can be optimized.  (Click on images to enlarge)

Audio Canvas Control Panel

As you can see from the picture above, with the control panel there are tonal adjustments, 5 band parametric EQ, Matrix Switcher, High Pass and Low Pass crossover filters, Channel Router, Master Volume, Loudness, Compressor and individual channel volume. It should be noted that many of the controls you see here are available on each channel independently.  Therefore, you can adjust each audio output (Left, Right, Center, etc.) independently of the others. All of this happens in real time; no need to recompile- make a change and you hear it immediately from the speakers (assuming you have content playing back as you make adjustments). Here is a closer view of some of these controls.

The images above show the tonal control response curve (left) and the 5 band parametric EQ response curve (right).  On the Tonal control panel, there are 4 knobs used to control the frequency response and gain (volume) for the bass and treble frequencies.  Rotating the knobs will change the frequency response and graph below the knobs. On the parametric EQ graph, there are 5 bands that can be adjusted for both gain (center green dot) and bandwidth (pair of green dots).  Furthermore, the EQ has a summation effect where the bands can be added to increase the gain by setting the centering point on each band to the same frequency.  This would allow you to boost the bass response in one channel, for example, or filter out a bad frequency that might be distorting.  You could also use these controls in conjunction with your speaker’s response curves (contact your speaker manufacturer) to optimize the audio outputs to your speakers.  Likewise, if you have a mixed set of speakers (for example, different surround sound speakers from your main left and right), you could adjust the audio outputs on a per speaker basis. Response curves shown are not necessarily recommended settings but purely an example to show some range of control available.

In the image above, you see how to set High Pass and Low Pass crossover filters. The panel provides control for the type of filter, in this case a Butterworth Filter, but there are Bessel and Linkwitz-Riley filter options as well. There are also settings for both the slope and the cut off frequency. The shaded blue area represents the frequencies being filtered out.  By using both a low and high pass crossover filter it is possible to create a band pass filter if so desired.

  The image above shows how the router can be used to remap the channel outputs.  This is useful if you wanted to do a multi-zone environment where instead of 5.1 speakers in one room, you might have 3.1 in one room and 2 more speakers in another room. 

Above is the Compressor/Limiter.  This is useful when you have content that was encoded at different volume and/or gain settings.  With the compressor, you can set a threshold and then automatically increase or decrease gain based upon the threshold setting and the ratio.  Factors such as the attack and release are used to determine how fast it should ramp and release the gain.

Lastly, there are three different points in the control panel (next to the EQ buttons, LP buttons, and independent volume buttons) where you can open up a VU/Level meter to monitor the signal level at each point to ensure that you have the appropriate headroom as you make adjustments.

As you can see, the Audio Canvas^TM application is more of a tool for engineers, system integrators and/or audio enthusiast and not something for the everyday user.  However, what this represents is just how much control an individual can exert over their audio environment when using the MSI platform with the D2Audio chip on board.  Furthermore, this new firmware enables the hooks necessary for programmers to develop their own user interface to control the audio experience.  As mentioned in the earlier blog, the audio characteristics offered on this platform are certainly impressive on their own- combine such performance with such programmability and you have the makings of a very unique solution indeed.  It is just another one of those things that set this platform apart from other HTPC solutions on the market.

Till next time, Happy Trails!

Jay Taylor is a Senior Developer Relations Engineer at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.