Allo Sparky USBridge

[H-Man]

3 hours ago, jtwrace said:

Nope, can't do it.  The reader doesn't fit into my adapter on my PC.  What a pain.  

 

This is what I meant when I said ugly upgrade process up above... But a suitable card reader is pretty cheap. 

10 hours ago, juliocat said:

 

I sorted the upsampling problem found by H-man by turning on Headroom - play - stop -turn off headroom - turn on SRC 7th Order Linear Phase- play - Voila!!!

 

I have tested this and it does not work as a fix or even as a consistent workaround, sometimes the Sparky locks up to the extent that the IP stack becomes unresponsive and power cycling is the only option unless you have a connected keyboard, which I don't. 

[rikhav]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01EFPX9XA/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1504242371&sr=8-2-spons&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=usb+card+reader+3.0&psc=1

 

Number of usb card readers available on Amazon for very cheap

[latenz]

How to do the the prozess on a mac?OSX? On the website from allo only Linux and win are described...

Thank you

[rikhav]

I don't use the sparky personally but the image install should be very similar to how moode audio os or volumio is installed 

Go to their website and its explained in detail how to do it on a Mac 

[allo.com]

Anyone that has a USBridge and cannot flash, please contact us and we will send you a SD card flashed. Sorry for the inconvenience.

 

 We have looked into this DSP problem. The main problem is that up sampling is now at maximum 768Khz (over 50Mbs of traffic)

 

   We are working hard to try to fix this issue (with driver changes etc) but we always claimed 384Khz on PCM and 128DSD . We are able to go to 256 DSD without an issue . So 384Khz/256 DSD is official .

 

Will update as soon as we get more info for our team. Rest assured that everyone works overtime to try to fix this.

 

     One easy hack...is to use a Ethernet to USB dongle that will remove any bottles necks from our ethernet. Of course its just a hack.It will allow 768Khz PCM

[H-Man]

26 minutes ago, allo.com said:

Anyone that has a USBridge and cannot flash, please contact us and we will send you a SD card flashed. Sorry for the inconvenience.

 

 We have looked into this DSP problem. The main problem is that up sampling is now at maximum 768Khz (over 50Mbs of traffic)

 

   We are working hard to try to fix this issue (with driver changes etc) but we always claimed 384Khz on PCM and 128DSD . We are able to go to 256 DSD without an issue . So 384Khz/256 DSD is official .

 

Will update as soon as we get more info for our team. Rest assured that everyone works overtime to try to fix this.

 

     One easy hack...is to use a Ethernet to USB dongle that will remove any bottles necks from our ethernet. Of course its just a hack.It will allow 768Khz PCM

 

I have encountered further issues/bugs/features depending what the intent is :-) 

 

- Inability to remove installed Roon bridge software. I tried to get back to a clean image and went to dietpi-software to remove Roonbridge. When attempting this Sparky hangs and becomes unresponsive. After 10 minutes I power cycled  but looking at installed software Roonbridge is still there. Tried to remove Roonbridge once again with similar result. 

 

-  Something happens with the ethernet driver / IP stack, from time to time the unit drops off the network. 

 

I will re-flash with previous image to validate that the HW is functional. 

[H-Man]

I am back on the previous image and everything is working as it was before, so HW is OK. I will wait for Allo to announce updates before trying again. 

 

[allo.com]

Hi ,

 

 we are working and will update only Tuesday. Thx you all for your patience .

[asdf1000]

3 hours ago, allo.com said:

One easy hack...is to use a Ethernet to USB dongle that will remove any bottles necks from our ethernet. Of course its just a hack.It will allow 768Khz PCM

 

Hi, I thought the Sparky's USB and ethernet do not share the same bus, so the 100mbps ethernet should handle 50mbps PCM768 without issues, no? 

 

Why is there a botte-neck that needs a hack?

 

Apologies if I'm missing something obvious.

 

[allo.com]

The 2 buses are separate , but in most ARM cpus ,  ethernet , USB etc they dont reach full speeds. . On Sparkys Ethernet we observed about 70Mbs throughput . 

 

 Since the USB2.0 (back) of sparky has also a dedicated bus to CPU , we tested Ethernet to USB2.0  and Usbridge output (another dedicated bus) . In our preliminary test , we have seen 786Khz and DSD 512 working...

 

I want to stress that those are preliminary tests, we will finish internal testing and will update everyone.

 

 Again , thx you all for your patience and support.

[asdf1000]

No problems and thanks for the clarification.

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

On 8/30/2017 at 9:58 PM, mikey8811 said:

I was hoping maybe I didn't need LMS on my Mac as per the Allo comment as the latest version of LMS won't install on my Mac.

 

Other than LMS, are there other options that will install and run on a 32 bit computer? I do not use Roon so that won't matter.

 

This seems to work on 32 bit computers:

https://www.orastream.com

[1markr]

Looking for help / thoughts..... I got my Allo Sparky/USBridge today, and hooked it up. It came up, and I was able to enable NAA; it shows up in HQPlayer (shows as atm7059_link:) , and also shows up in Roon as an endpoint as well on my Macbook. So far so good....

 

I don't seem to be able to make it connect to my ExaSound E32 DAC.  The DAC screen stays blank (e.g. shows only USB - - -  - - - ) which shows it's not connected. Is there something else that needs to be done in DietPi? 

 

I did try another USB cable just in case, rebooted the Sparky/USBridge, etc., but still no sound from the DAC.

 

Any thoughts?

[rickca]

3 minutes ago, 1markr said:

I don't seem to be able to make it connect to my ExaSound E32 DAC

Exasound has proprietary Linux drivers that are only available on the PlayPoint.  

[1markr]

Oh no, so that means I can't use the Sparky/USBridge with my ExaSound??!!   Major bummer!!

 

Anyone wanna buy it? Brand spanking new!

 

 

[rickca]

10 minutes ago, 1markr said:

Oh no, so that means I can't use the Sparky/USBridge with my ExaSound??!!

Have a look at the linked post.  This is Jesus from Sonore talking about why ExaSound DACs are not supported by SonicOrbiter on the microRendu.

 

Certainly double check this with Exasound before you sell your wonderful E32, but I believe Exasound DACs need a PlayPoint for network streaming.  Exasound has their own ecosystem.

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/26730-sonore-microrendu/?do=findComment&comment=504453

 

[ted_b]

Or simply use a windows NAA and exaSound's custom built ASIO driver.  Still leaves out the USBBridge, but a cheap Windows-based NAA is literally not much more than this nice Allo solution.  Your call.  Hijack over.

[1markr]

@rickca - LOL, I would certainly not part with my E32! I had the E12 before it, and now the E32 is my system's foundation. I absolutely love the wonderful DAC. Alas, for now, the PlayPoint is quite a bit out of my reach for now.

 

I was talking about selling the Sparky/USBridge... I wonder if Allo will take it back?

[1markr]

@ted_b  Thanks for your thoughts there.... I will have to investigate more!

[jtwrace]

16 hours ago, H-Man said:

 

This is what I meant when I said ugly upgrade process up above... But a suitable card reader is pretty cheap. 

I was able to find a reader so I'll try it for giggles.  

 

I've been informed that Allo is going to work on this so it's auto update.  No promise in timeline but they do want it.  @allo.com has been so on top of it!  Very impressive.

[volpone]

34 minutes ago, jtwrace said:

I was able to find a reader so I'll try it for giggles.  

...

 

Could you please give me a link to the  eMMC module reader + USB multireader you are using ? 

I probably will have to reflash Sparky OS (Dietpi) and I'm looking for one. Thank's

[jtwrace]

@H-Man where do I find the img file?  I have the .7z file but don't see where I find the img file that the directions say I need to write.

 

[juliocat]

1 minute ago, jtwrace said:

@H-Man where do I find the img file?  I have the .7z file but don't see where I find the img file that the directions say I need to write.

 

You need to unpack the 7z file, you can use keka winrar or 7zip for that

[jtwrace]

2 minutes ago, volpone said:

 

Could you please give me a link to the  eMMC module reader + USB multireader you are using ? 

I probably will have to update Sparky OS (Dietpi) and I'm looking for one. Thank's

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008VQ2YUY/ref=twister_B0114MZS7W?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

[volpone]

2 minutes ago, jtwrace said:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008VQ2YUY/ref=twister_B0114MZS7W?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

 

Thank's.

Is this, cheaper, OK too ?: https://www.amazon.com/Transcend-microSDHC-Reader-TS-RDF5K-Black/dp/B009D79VH4/ref=pd_cp_147_4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=VFV04VSEGWQKHBEKXC37