I remember those days when I was a kid and got my GameBoy and a Mega Drive later, they were amazing and games were fun and beautiful, but I also had a special taste for game synthesized music and how magical it sounded to me. Besides playing, I spent countless hours with my headphones on listening to that gorgeous game music produced by the consoles themselves, those melodies, those nuances in those rough audio channels really transported me to other worlds, and now we can feel that exact “cicle accurate” stereo sensation with our MiSTer FPGA Mini-ITX Ironclad Plus setup in every classic retro system. Introducing the Hi-Fi BLASTER add-on for the Mini-ITX Ironclad Lite/Plus!.
Features:
- Completely plug and play
- Replaces the DAC on the DE10-Nano with a better one.
- The new rich, improved, and stronger sound populates to all analog audio outputs.
- Greatly reduces “pops” and crackling sounds when loading/switching cores or games.
- Enables the HDAUDIO header on the Ironclad to provide true amplified headphones output!
- Solid capacitors designed with audio quality in mind above anything else, fine tuned to avoid clipping and distortion often present in “cheap Aliexpress DAC boards”.
- Matches the Ironclad deep blue PCB design.
Installation Instructions:
Simply connect it to the “Audio Exp” header on the Ironclad following the orientation shown in the image above, flick the rightmost dip switch (SW0) on the DE10-Nano, and that’s it.
Please do the installation/removal with your MiSTer turned off and make extra-sure the connector is not misplaced and all pins are inserted where they should.
Headphones volume adjustment is done via MiSTer’s menu, it can be for all cores at once or for each core individually. Beware, headphones can be VERY LOUD at higher volume settings. Keep your hearing safe 😉
The Hi-Fi BLASTER cannot work in dual SDRAM configuration as the MiSTer is not outputting any external sound signal to process in this mode, tht’s a limitation on the MiSTer’s platform.