Allo Sparky USBridge

[allo.com]

Yes I think its a NAA issue on ARM. We will investigate after releasing the new image.

[jtwrace]

An update to all.  I have to thank @allo.com and Dan (too bad he's not here) from DietPi.  They worked tirelessly to solve my issue with upsampling to DSD256 with the Brooklyn.  The issue (attached vid) is that I have tone while upsampling but music is playing.  Ever hear of this?  In the end, Mytek needs to step up and help but I'm not feeling warm and fuzzy about that at the moment.  This will certainly say a lot about my future with this dac as customer service is very important to me.  

 

My USBridge is playing DSD128 files without any issue though and is powered currently using the Hynes SR3-5 and the included wall wart with "J28" removed.  It really does sound great!  I should also mention that with trouble shooting I'm currently using the Ethernet to USB adapter as well.  

DSD256 Tone.MOV

[vortecjr]

4 hours ago, jtwrace said:

An update to all.  I have to thank @allo.com and Dan (too bad he's not here) from DietPi.  They worked tirelessly to solve my issue with upsampling to DSD256 with the Brooklyn.  The issue (attached vid) is that I have tone while upsampling but music is playing.  Ever hear of this?  In the end, Mytek needs to step up and help but I'm not feeling warm and fuzzy about that at the moment.  This will certainly say a lot about my future with this dac as customer service is very important to me.  

 

My USBridge is playing DSD128 files without any issue though and is powered currently using the Hynes SR3-5 and the included wall wart with "J28" removed.  It really does sound great!  I should also mention that with trouble shooting I'm currently using the Ethernet to USB adapter as well.  

DSD256 Tone.MOV

I have not heard of this. I'm using a microRendu running Sonicorbiter 2.5 into my Mytek Brooklyn. I replicated your setup and it plays fine here. Is the Allo a RoonReady endpoint or a RoonBridge endpoint? If you are not sure you can look in Roon / Audio Setup / Networked. 

[jtwrace]

6 hours ago, vortecjr said:

I have not heard of this. I'm using a microRendu running Sonicorbiter 2.5 into my Mytek Brooklyn. I replicated your setup and it plays fine here. Is the Allo a RoonReady endpoint or a RoonBridge endpoint? If you are not sure you can look in Roon / Audio Setup / Networked. 

I don't know and don't see see it based on your location.

 

 

[pgbcincy]

12 hours ago, vortecjr said:

Is the Allo a RoonReady endpoint or a RoonBridge endpoint?

RoonBridge.  

[Mark V.]

Is there a choice to have it setup as Roon Bridge or Roon Ready End Point? What's the difference?

[pgbcincy]

Good question about difference.  Reading on Roon's site, it seems like a certification, not sure of the technical differences as they both use RAAT.  Maybe Jesus can explain more as rendu's are RoonReady.

https://kb.roonlabs.com/Roon_Ready 

https://kb.roonlabs.com/Roon_partner_programs

"Roon Ready is the highest level of Roon integration available to partners, and means that Roon technology is actually customized for, and embedded into, their devices.

It's a designation given to audio player hardware products that have both implemented RAAT, and have been certified by Roon Labs for proper implementation. For more details on what RAAT can provide, how it differs from other network streaming protocols, and the design philosophy behind it, please check out the RAAT page.)"

[H-Man]

On 2017-09-09 at 9:19 PM, jtwrace said:

An update to all.  I have to thank @allo.com and Dan (too bad he's not here) from DietPi.  They worked tirelessly to solve my issue with upsampling to DSD256 with the Brooklyn.  The issue (attached vid) is that I have tone while upsampling but music is playing.  Ever hear of this?  In the end, Mytek needs to step up and help but I'm not feeling warm and fuzzy about that at the moment.  This will certainly say a lot about my future with this dac as customer service is very important to me.  

 

I have done the same test and I also have that tone with the USBridge but I am not sure that the problem is with the DAC. I also have the Brooklyn DAC and with my ultraRendu I can play both native and upsampled DSD 256 without any issues, so if you ask me the problem is not the Brooklyn DAC...

[allo.com]

Hello H man ,

 

  We are aware of the problem of Mytek Dac and Usbridge and we are working around the clock to find the issue. The patch that we found is "experimental  support " . We dont know how uRendu does it ,  we will try to solve this issue on our own. Jason , Dan , Allo team  , we are exchanging emails daily and testing different ideas . Also we have tried to solve it with Mytek suport with no luck so far.

 

 

[Miska]

On 9/9/2017 at 1:59 PM, guiltyboxswapper said:

I have just managed to get HQPlayer's NAA streaming at 512 rates by setting the CPU governor to performance (which basically keeps the CPU at its max clock).  Once in a while it blips (every few mins), but works.  So it appears the SoC is borderline capacity wise at 512 with NAA at least.    As mentioned RoonBridge has no problems at 512.

 

Wonder if  @Miska could look into any optimisations for the ARM build at all?  I may experiment with a mild overclock to see if that alleviates it.

 

What kind of loads does "top" show for the networkaudiod? I find it very unlikely that it would be CPU load problem based on the Sparky specs. Only ARM device I have that cannot do DSD512 is a single-core 400 MHz ARM9, it is limited to DSD256. But even single core of Sparky is way more than twice as fast (much newer architecture and higher clock speed) compared to that...

 

[Miska]

On 9/9/2017 at 6:11 PM, guiltyboxswapper said:

t's primarily HQPlayer NAA, but as mentioned above with cpu governer set to performance it's almost there, odd glitch.  That's with and without USB ethernet adapter.  Often stable 50mbit/s~ traffic, but when its struggling, you can clearly see ethernet traffic dipping.  

 

I would say this is likely a network problem... Usually caused by a switch in the middle discarding flow control packets. For example flow control being disabled in smart switch settings.

 

[alvin1118]

Just receive the USBridge, thanks @allo.com. It came assembled with DietPI and roonbridge pinstalled. Took me less than 30mins to get it working with DENAFRIPS Terminator. 

 

Works well in all sampling rate incl native DSD256 playback with the Terminator. 

[pgbcincy]

2 hours ago, Miska said:

What kind of loads does "top" show for the networkaudiod?

 

I've ran Native DSD512 NAA without issues this weekend using the new Dietpit Sparky Stretch image posted on 9/9.  CPU for networkaudiod usage averages ~33%.  Prior to this image I did have hesitation on playback HQplayer DSD512 playback.  I'm using RoonServer with HQplayer as my player.  I am having issues with Roon alone at DSD512.  It will play for 10 seconds and then die.  I had the same behavor with my uRendu so I doubt this is USBridge realted.  I prefer HQplayer, so I really had no reason to troubleshoot this.

[Miska]

1 hour ago, pgbcincy said:

 

I've ran Native DSD512 NAA without issues this weekend using the new Dietpit Sparky Stretch image posted on 9/9.  CPU for networkaudiod usage averages ~33%.  Prior to this image I did have hesitation on playback HQplayer DSD512 playback.  I'm using RoonServer with HQplayer as my player.  I am having issues with Roon alone at DSD512.  It will play for 10 seconds and then die.  I had the same behavor with my uRendu so I doubt this is USBridge realted.  I prefer HQplayer, so I really had no reason to troubleshoot this.

 

OK, then the CPU load is certainly not an issue, if one core worth of CPU would be fully loaded then top would show 100+% for networkaudiod. For quad core full load it would show 400%.

 

So 33% load for networkaudiod should mean total system CPU load shown by top averaging around 8 - 10%.

[PJotr]

Thank's allo for your products.
I have usbridge and I play only via mpd.
I know you hard work on DSD, but it's not all music...

 

eg. I have Amanero, and with stable firmware (firmware_1096c3w2),  "aplay -l" see amanero only with Sparky (not usbridge), work OK. With usbridge "aplay -l" see only with new firmware (firmware_2003be_71A but it isn't stable firmware, not good for pcm), but not work OK, sometimes hangs when I switch the song.

 

Second examble oppo ha-2  "aplay -l" see on sparky and usbridge, but when I play all music it is "slowlly".

[guiltyboxswapper]

5 hours ago, Miska said:

 

I would say this is likely a network problem... Usually caused by a switch in the middle discarding flow control packets. For example flow control being disabled in smart switch settings.

 

 

OK happy to try another switch and i'll double check flow control is active on my current switch (NETGEAR GS108T).  Any recommendations for switches?

[guiltyboxswapper]

5 hours ago, Miska said:

 

What kind of loads does "top" show for the networkaudiod? I find it very unlikely that it would be CPU load problem based on the Sparky specs. Only ARM device I have that cannot do DSD512 is a single-core 400 MHz ARM9, it is limited to DSD256. But even single core of Sparky is way more than twice as fast (much newer architecture and higher clock speed) compared to that...

 

 

Quite low - 40% max on the process, which is why I found it odd that setting governor to performance alleviated the issue...

[guiltyboxswapper]

2 hours ago, pgbcincy said:

 

I've ran Native DSD512 NAA without issues this weekend using the new Dietpit Sparky Stretch image posted on 9/9.  CPU for networkaudiod usage averages ~33%.  Prior to this image I did have hesitation on playback HQplayer DSD512 playback.  I'm using RoonServer with HQplayer as my player.  I am having issues with Roon alone at DSD512.  It will play for 10 seconds and then die.  I had the same behavor with my uRendu so I doubt this is USBridge realted.  I prefer HQplayer, so I really had no reason to troubleshoot this.

 

I'd rather use HQPlayer too.  Is the build number for your sparky release v155 ?

[guiltyboxswapper]

Turns out the switch I have is the v2 version and might have flow control disabled by default!!! Will confirm soon.

[pgbcincy]

1 hour ago, guiltyboxswapper said:

 

I'd rather use HQPlayer too.  Is the build number for your sparky release v155 ?

Yes, this Sparky release is v155.  

@allo.com

What is the difference between the images out there?  DietPi_SparkySBC-armv7-(Stretch)-USB_ETH-ROON_AUTO vs. DietPi_SparkySBC-armv7-(Stretch)

 

[guiltyboxswapper]

Can confirm in my case at least, enabling flow control didn't remedy the DSD 512 issues with NAA.  Still had to enable 'performance' governor.  Still not stable - literally skipping a track causes it to cut out.

[allo.com]

10 hours ago, pgbcincy said:

Yes, this Sparky release is v155.  

@allo.com

What is the difference between the images out there?  DietPi_SparkySBC-armv7-(Stretch)-USB_ETH-ROON_AUTO vs. DietPi_SparkySBC-armv7-(Stretch)

 UEB-ETH-ROOn has ethernet enabled in USB

10 hours ago, pgbcincy said:

 

 

[Miska]

16 hours ago, guiltyboxswapper said:

Can confirm in my case at least, enabling flow control didn't remedy the DSD 512 issues with NAA.  Still had to enable 'performance' governor.  Still not stable - literally skipping a track causes it to cut out.

 

Maybe the ethernet adapter in the device doesn't know how to send the flow control packets. That associated with latency issues in the kernel is already enough to cause said behavior.

 

[allo.com]

root@DietPi:~# mii-tool -v eth0
eth0: negotiated 100baseTx-FD, link ok
  product info: vendor 00:07:49, model 1 rev 1
  basic mode:   autonegotiation enabled
  basic status: autonegotiation complete, link ok
  capabilities: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD
  advertising:  100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD
  link partner: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD flow-control

 

  We quickly checked seems that flow control is enabled

[Miska]

1 hour ago, allo.com said:

root@DietPi:~# mii-tool -v eth0
eth0: negotiated 100baseTx-FD, link ok
  product info: vendor 00:07:49, model 1 rev 1
  basic mode:   autonegotiation enabled
  basic status: autonegotiation complete, link ok
  capabilities: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD
  advertising:  100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD
  link partner: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD flow-control

 

  We quickly checked seems that flow control is enabled

 

Note that it is not advertising flow-control, only the other end of the cable is...

 

For comparison:

eth0: negotiated 1000baseT-FD flow-control, link ok
  product info: vendor 00:55:00, model 10 rev 0
  basic mode:   autonegotiation enabled
  basic status: autonegotiation complete, link ok
  capabilities: 1000baseT-FD 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD
  advertising:  1000baseT-FD 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD flow-control
  link partner: 1000baseT-FD 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD flow-control