New vs. Old ESP Horsepower

[ethanwheeler]

I was just playing around with ControlSpace Designer 4.0 to test DSP horsepower in the new ESP-Series models, and I’m seeing some very interesting results. This is far from an exhaustive test, just a quick peek.

Here’s what I did…

I have 4 different ESP units loaded into ControlSpace Designer:

A. Old ESP-88 with stock processing
B. Old ESP-88 with DSP expansion card
C. New ESP-00 II with 8x8 I/O
D. New ESP-880 stock

All four units are essentially 8 in, 8 out. The only exception is that the ESP-880 also has the digital ESP link card.

With those four units, I measured DSP horsepower with the following blocks:

1. Two 8x1 AutoMicMix blocks
2. Four 8-out Delay blocks

And here’s what I got…

Processors, in the order listed above (A through D) with the AutoMicMix blocks:

A. 93% DSP Usage
B. 30% DSP Usage
C. 30% DSP Usage
D. 21% DSP Usage (Whoa…what???)

Processors, in the order listed above (A through D) with the Delay blocks:

A. 74% DSP Usage, 14% Delay Usage
B. 22% DSP Usage, 4% Delay Usage
C. 22% DSP Usage, 4% Delay Usage
D. 10% DSP Usage, 38% Delay Usage


Couple-o-thoughts on this…

First off, the ESP-880 is going to be a beast of a DSP. Especially with fixed I/O, I don’t see horsepower ever being a real concern.
Second, this confirms what we’ve been told about the new ESP-00 II having the same horsepower as the old ESP-88 WITH the DSP expansion, for significantly less cost.
Third, it’s interesting to me that the ESP-00 II and the ESP-880 are so different in the way they process delay and DSP horsepower. Both are plenty powerful for most of our real-world applications, but the ESP-880 is a bit like cramming a Corvette motor into a Honda Civic. Do you need the power? Naw. But do you WANT the power? Yes, please. Very interesting...

[ChrisP-at-Bose]

These numbers agree with my expectations. The ESP-880 uses a newer generation of DSP chip that is faster, while the ESP-00 II uses the same DSP as the original ESP-88. In the ESP-880, there were some design trade-offs that resulted in less delay memory, but for most use cases there should be plenty.

... and I drive a Civic. Where can I get the retrofit?

Chris Perkins
DSP Engineer

[ethanwheeler]

Oh, you want a "Civette", do you? Pretty sure it voids the warranty...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfR_Ztug9N0

[Asad-at-LC_Acou]

Good Info. Thanks for sharing.

[R.Kosman@Bose]

Ethan,

Great analysis! When looking at the requirements for the new ESP-880 we found that many people were using the ESP-88 with a DSP expansion card, this led us to determine that we needed to increase the overall processing capabilities of the new hardware, and as Chris points out advances in DSP processing speed helped out as well.

The new hardware will start shipping early next month, can't wait to hear you comments from your first project!

Rob

[Lars_Justesen]

Where Can I get 4.0?