Digital DI Box 01 - Intro

What is DI Box

In Audio processing DI Box converts an unbalanced signal into balanced, to improve audio transfer on a longer distances. Normally this is done with a high quality transformer which inverts the incoming audio and sends it along side with t non-inverted original. This kind of devices are quite expensive.

Why Digital?

Since IC's these days are much cheaper than many analogue parts, I will attempt to create a Digital DI box. I will convert the unbalanced audio signal into bits, invert digitally and convert back to analogue. (Sending pure digital data will require complex protocols and proprietary hardware which defeats the purpose of the experiment). At the ogher end I will digitize both streams and combine back into unbalanced audio.

Plan

So far I will need the following:

1. Practice with ADC on a relatively fast MC - e.g. ATXmega32A4U
2. Establish high speed communication with the MC to ensure the data gets converted sufficiently
3. Invert and convert to analogue digital audio
4. Receive two audio streams simultaneously converting to digital
5. Combine two signals into one and convert to analogue