u/DonMartinos

I'm looking for an amp and midrange speakers. My current setup is: Dacia Logan with some basic sound deadening and the factory head unit with Carlinkit T-Box UHD connected via AA/CP protocol.

Audio path looks like this: Carlinkit T-BOX UHD -> HDMI audio extractor (HDMI -> SPDIF) -> PUZU PZ-D8 (DSP with amp) -> Focal PS165 SF (passive crossovers) + 2x Alpine SWE-815 active subs.

My goal is to have the PUZU power the tweeters, and a new amp power the woofers and midrange speakers.

Midranges I'm considering: Hertz MP-70.3, Musway ML3M, Musway MG3M, Audison AV3. Which ones will match best with the Focals?

For the amp I'm torn between the u-Dimension Ela Earth and ESX QFourV2. Which one would be better?

What power cable for this? Will 10mm2 copper be enough at max 2.5m length? Right now I've got 25mm2 copper from the battery, then a distro block 25mm2 -> 4x10mm2, so that'd be perfect.

I have a factory car head unit with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. A Carlinkit T-BOX UHD (SDM660, HDMI + USB-A, Android 13) is plugged into the head unit’s USB port, and I also have a PUZU PZ-D8 DSP connected to the factory wiring harness.

I’d like to remove the factory head unit from the audio chain and send the sound from the T-Box directly to the DSP, ideally all system audio.

The problem is that audio is not routed to USB devices, even though Android detects them correctly and I can even control volume. USB audio routing is enabled in developer options.

I’m considering two options:

1. T-Box -> HDMI audio extractor with SPDIF output -> DSP

This should work in theory, but I’m a bit concerned about sound quality.

As a test, I connected a TV via HDMI while the box was still connected to the car. Audio and video worked both in the car and on the TV at the same time, but there were crackling sounds and video artifacts on the TV. That may have been caused by a very old, long HDMI cable.

Has anyone used this kind of setup, or can recommend a good HDMI audio extractor?

Music: T-Box + player with its own USB driver (UAPP / HiBy / Neutron) -> USB DAC -> DSP

Other sounds (navigation etc.): T-Box -> factory radio path -> DSP

This should also work in theory, because the Box was able to send audio over USB to an Asus Xonar U7 sound card using HiBy Music, and the DSP can mix two input sources.

I just don’t know how practical and stable it would be in daily use. Another downside is that music would need to be played through specific apps.

Either way, can anyone recommend a small USB DAC with SPDIF output? Something smaller than the Xonar (130 x 80 x 25 mm), budget-friendly, and powered directly from USB (no separate power supply).

If anyone has another idea, I’d be happy to hear it.

I have a Carlinkit T-BOX UHD (SDM 660) and I want to connect a DSP to it. As the device doesn’t route audio to the USB port, I need to use the HDMI port. I want to use an HDMI audio extractor with an SPDIF output. Has anyone done this before? Which devices would you recommend? Does this affect the sound quality?