Is ESP32 good for audio processing?

[filo_gr]

Hello,

I'm asking this because I have a Teensy 3 board and I know it is a high performance board, expecially for audio processing.
On the other hand I'm entering the ESP world, I'd like to understand if ESP32 is able to sample (ADC) and create (DAC) waveforms.
Are the ESP32's peripherals able to sample at a rate higher than ~40KHz?
Can the I2S protocol come to the aid? And how?

Regards,
Filippo

[PanicanWhyasker]

I'm not a specialist, but I've used an ESP32 for audio recording (voice, stereo, 24 kHz). But I'm using an internal chip that is I2S compliant.
Have you looked into ESP ADF? It has a lot of examples and links to development boards which have all the needed hardware. You may be able to answer your question about what the capabilities of the bare-bones ESP32 chip are.
I think the DACs can be configured as outputs from an I2S stream, but they are 8-bit, so the quality won't be great.

[ESP_Sprite]

PanicanWhyasker is correct: while you can theoretically use the built-in DACs and ADCs, for anything resembling good audio quality, you probably want to use an external I2S codec instead.

[filo_gr]

I'm not a specialist, but I've used an ESP32 for audio recording (voice, stereo, 24 kHz). But I'm using an internal chip that is I2S compliant.
Have you looked into ESP ADF?

So, if I'm not wrong, ESP32 is not so good at processing sound.
However there is the opportunity to "specialize" the ESP buying a particular board that extends the ESP32's capabilities.

ESP-ADF

esp32-lyrat-v4.3-block-diagram.jpg (48.14 KiB) Viewed 4873 times

On the other hand I understand I2S is a protocol used by some external components such as DACs and ADCs, so they can communicate the samples with ESP32. And again: I need something to improve the ESP32's capabilities.

Am I right?