OK, the software. I mentioned
earlier, that I am using
roon to stream my own digital files from my nas.
To make this Kali-I2S unit work, requires a boot memory card that has roon client software loaded on it, that receives the streaming data and passes it to the Kali reclocker.
So I wasnt figuring everything out from scratch, I ordered a boot memory card from Allo, with the Dietpi linux image pre-loaded.
Dietpi is pre-configured with the roon receiver, airplay and some other bits. All loaded ready to go.
But it didnt work first go. There were a bunch of sound card drivers, that I had to work through and pick the right one, via trial and error. It wasnt obvious, because the drivers are named after Dac boards, not the Kali board (the one that worked was the Allo-Piano dac soundcard driver). Anyway, once I had the right audio driver selected,, then all of a sudden the Roon backend discovered my I2S device on the network.
Next hoop, was in Roon smartphone app, it had a few different device options for my Kali. All of the options didnt work, except one. As long as I have one that works, I am happy (they were named the same, so you just have to try them one at a time).
This Kali board supports up to 192k sampling rates,,, so I had to tell Roon to limit the sampling rate to 16/48k.
And, in playing back a 44.1k file,,, the 44.1 light on the Kali lights up. It correctly detects the right sample rate and clocks accordingly. Roon wasnt resampling to 48 (which I had a mild concern about).
So, thats my software tips to get this to work (with Roon). If you want to attempt it yourself and have questions, feel free to PM me or post here.