Allo Digione Signature

[wanta911]

I have been using an Auralic Aries for years and I'm considering getting the DigiOne Signature Player as I have a need for a 2nd unit and it will be interesting to compare. I have a couple of noob questions:

 

1. Just to confirm - the power inputs are USB C, not micro USB?
2. The OS options are confusing for me as I have zero experience with RPIs - what would be a good choice?

Cheers!

[wanta911]

My newly ordered Signature will arrive on Monday next week and I will put it up against my Auralic Aries Femto and see for myself if Darko's statement comparing the two has any substance. Everything in my setup is powered by linear power supplies and the Aries is powered by an SBooster that IMO is an improvement than the stock LPS that came with it. I already have spare LPS options ready for the Signature.

 

I'm looking forward to this. I love the way the industry is currently being shaken up by cheaper components that actually deliver quality results.

[wanta911]

7 hours ago, quanghuy147 said:

 

In case of the Signature , it has its own clean power source. Can using clean power for Pi can improve the sound further?

 

 

I remember seeing at least one review (was it Darko?) that suggested that using an LPS on the dirty side was too much of a good thing and it all got a little too smooth, which is interesting and I would think it would be system dependent?

 

My Signature arrives on Monday and I have a spare SBooster 5-6V and a spare rail on my HDPlex 200W LPS, so I will be going straight to clean power all round as I would rather not put an SMPS back into my dedicated power strip after spending a lot of effort to get rid of them all as part of my audio nervosa ?

[wanta911]

Any experience with the amperage required for the dirty side? I am reading that the stock is 5V 3A and a minimum of 5V 2.5A is required, has anyone had any luck with 5V 2A?

[wanta911]

Well my Digione Signature arrived today, complete with a loose screw rattling around inside - LOL. No biggie, it was a quick retrieval and fix but 2 of the other 3 screws on the Digione board were not tightened down properly ?

 

Anyway, after a brain fade that wasted a good 45 minutes (I turned i2s off), we were up & going.

 

I got the Volumio OS but I'm controlling playback with the Lumin App that's drawing from Minimserver on my NAS. Dirty side is powered by SBooster LPS and the clean side by the Uptone LPS 1.2. So the head to head with the Aries Femto has begun....

 

 

[wanta911]

1 hour ago, nbpf said:

I have just received the GhentAudio cables to directly connect the JS-2 and the LPS-1.2 to the dirty and to the clean sides of the DigiOne Signature, respectively. The build quality is very good. The cables are black, pleasant to the touch and more flexible than the UpTone Audio cables. I can highly recommend the GhentAudio cables (see  https://www.ghentaudio.com/part/dc29.html), for instance, to avoid the mess with the USB C to 2.5mm and 2.5mm to 2.1mm adapters that come with the DigiOne Signature. 

 

Cool! I too will be interested in your findings, even if they are just a case of making everything neater.

 

IIRC the clean side of the Signature can take higher than 5V....have you tried 7V or 9V using the LPS 1.2?

[wanta911]

4 hours ago, nbpf said:

I find it very difficult to compare different power supplies or cables when swapping A and B necessarily requires rebooting the system. That said, I have the impression that getting rid of the Allo USB C to barrel adapters and of the 2.5mm to 2.1mm adapters has improved the sound quality. I'll go through more careful listening test and report.

 

I have tried 7V when I received the LPS-1.2 and didn't notice obvious differences between 5V and 7V. Thus, I settled on 5V for safety reasons. Again, I should probably now repeat the comparison and go through more careful listening tests. Another question is whether it is possible to power the dirty side with 7V. I do not remember this to be the case and I do not want to fry my Signature but perhaps Allo could clarify.  

 

OK I thought I'd ask as I was about to try it and wondered if anyone had any experience with it.

 

In my setup the Signature sounds good but perhaps a little too smooth/warm. I tried replacing the LPS powering the dirty side with the supplied SMPS but it made little if any difference. I then thought about upping the voltage to the clean side and figured that it couldn't hurt, especially if those using the battery pack were getting good sound with what has to be quite a bit more than 5V.

 

Anyway, I'm feeding it 7V now and I like it - it sounds a bit cleaner to my ears. A bit like it was being lazy on the LPS 1.2 5V setting. It has me thinking that I might try the batteries, I bought the battery holder with my order as it was just a few bucks.

[wanta911]

2 hours ago, quanghuy147 said:

Hi,

Is it normal to enable i2s dac in Volumio settings? 

 

I am confused because I use Volumio and Signature to get digital signal then feed the external DAC. Why do I have to enable I2S DAC?  

 

I tried to disable I2s DAC then got an error message when trying to play any song.

 

You have to have I2s enabled because that is the connection between the Pi and the Digione.

 

Remember that Volumio is only looking at the Pi....not the Digione board.

[wanta911]

19 hours ago, wanta911 said:

Anyway, I'm feeding it 7V now and I like it - it sounds a bit cleaner to my ears. 

 

Now I'm not so sure about this. I just unplugged a few things in my setup to arrange them better and started it all up again with 5V and it sounds great, no more of that over smoothness I was hearing before. (WTF?) Either my system is flaky or my brain needs a rest from critical listening ?

[wanta911]

On 12/18/2018 at 6:18 AM, RX8R3ROD said:

 

How does it sound (bearing in mind my main thing is PRaT and noise / ripple figures arguably only tell us a little bit about power supply sound) and what’s the ranking (worst first to best last)?

 

1. iPower 

2. Batteries

3. iPower plus supercaps and superregs

4. batteries plus supercaps and superregs

 

Though 4. Sounds better than 3. to my PRaT-yearning ears, it doesn’t sound anything like as much of an improvement as the measurements might suggest, and occasionally, though not that often, it sounds a bit ‘limp’ in comparison to 3.

 

For those not so PRaT-centric, 4. Is smoother, more detailed with significantly better note decay when other loud transients are starting. So, for example, a piano note will die out more slowly and evenly, and with better pitch definition, when a singer lets rip.

 

In summary I’d say if you’re not PRaT-centric you might be likely to prefer 4. To 3. (In my system, at least) but if you are PRaT-centric, it’s a closer call.

 

 

Interesting. As far as my main chain components are concerned I've settled on the following after a lot of changing around:

 

Digione dirty side - SBooster 5-6V

Digione clean side - Uptone LPS 1.2 5V

MiniDSP DDRC 22D - HDPlex 200W 5V 2A

Chord Qutest - Uptone JS-2 5V (running Qutest on incisive filter with BNC input)

 

I might buy some batteries one day and try them out on the clean side but at this stage it all sounds really good so I'm in no hurry.

 

On a side note - it's interesting how much warm (mid) bass the JS-2 seems to add to my particular setup compared to all my other LPSs no matter where I put it? This includes the LPS 1.2. I would imagine that the addition of the JS-2 into a colder sounding setup would make quite a nice difference but as I use room correction and had the bass sounding pretty sweet before the JS-2 arrived, I've had to adjust my target curve slightly to allow for it.

 

I've ordered a 2.1 to USB-C from Ghent for the LPS 1.2.

[wanta911]

2 hours ago, RX8R3ROD said:

 

And from a person perspective really good to hear from a fellow 22D user; something a lot of folks could, IMHO, potentially benefit from.

 

 

Agreed. I'd be lost without mine.

 

BTW - the Aries has now been officially banished in favour of the Digione Signature. There were a few little factors that tipped the scale but the main one was a much better soundstage, particularly depth.

 

Just a couple of minor observations for new users:

1. The LEDs were burning my eyeballs out, get the dark case or have some of those LED stickers handy (as I did).
2. The USB-C connections can be a little flaky. I had a few instances of the flashing red LED that suggested not enough power was being supplied but it was just pressure being put on the DC cable from another cable or in the case of the SBooster, a little more weight due to the box filter in the cable meant that there was some strain on the USB-C connection . I solved it by fixing the filter to my entertainment unit with blu-tac.
3. With the DC cables being connected on one side and SPDIF on another, you might need to employ a stabilising method such as rubber underneath and/or weight on top to stop it from moving around.
4. The startup sound with Volumio is cool - it gives it a personality ? 

[wanta911]

I've decided to try the battery option. Here are my newly acquired Samsung 35E (3500mAh) batteries getting ready at the office.

 

Only half a day of work today then on holiday until January 16 - woo hoo!

[wanta911]

Damn! Using the battery pack for the clean side and moving the Uptone LPS 1.2 to the MiniDSP DDRC-22D sounds really good....at least equal to using the LPS 1.2 there with the JS-2 powering the MiniDSP and probably a touch smoother without any loss of detail. I'm convinced that the result is a combination of the two changes - my setup has always sounded better with the LPS 1.2 powering the MiniDSP over any of my other power supplies, my theory is that despite containing a DC/DC converter the MiniDSP contains the last clock in the chain and that clock reacts to a better power supply and I rank the LPS 1.2 above the JS-2.

 

I'm not really that keen on the whole regular battery recharging & replacing routine, as well as having to disconnect/connect between each listening session to prolong battery life, it's got me thinking about buying another Uptone LPS 1.2 and using the two units to power the Signature and the MiniDSP.

 

There goes the bank balance again ?

[wanta911]

Well my theory was wrong! I just took the LPS 1.2 out of the loop completely and the battery pack still sounds great - no change with the JS-2 powering the MiniDSP.

 

S**t!

[wanta911]

11 hours ago, nbpf said:

 

Thus, my temporary conclusion is that either the S/PDIF interface of the Naim DAC is not as good as its USB interface or that the DigiOne Signature is not as good as I hoped.

 

Thanks for this post. It's a reminder that after the euphoria of getting something new that all might not be as it seems. As I've hinted in a previous post/s, the SQ of the DS sometimes seems too warm and hazy (mid bass) in my setup and it was bugging me.

 

It motivated me to put the Aries back in and do some more comparisons which I've been doing all afternoon using the Lumin App for the DS and Auralic's Lightning App for the Aries....both drawing from Minimserver on my NAS. Well the difference in the bass is quite obvious and I'm not sure why it wasn't this obvious when I initially did the comparison? I run the Aries with an SBooster with the Ultra add-on after ditching the Auralic LPS very early on, which I would describe as mushy. The SBooster makes the Aries bass really tight and resolving but it can tend to sound thin on poor recordings. In comparison the DS bass is warmer, which can make it more musical but can also make some material sound muddy. For me though, the DS still has a better soundstage and more ability to unearth small details.

 

One of the advantages of using room correction is that I can make separate target curves for each unit, so that's what I'll be doing later to do some more comparisons ?

[wanta911]

7 minutes ago, LowMidHigh said:

 

 

The difference is sound can only be attributed to jitter.

The more jitter, the muddier.

 

In theory, the Arie’s jitter is greater than DS, so I suppose that’s what behind your perception.

 

If you want bring jitter levels to bare minimum, you have to take the single through a re-clocker, or a chain of them, and even tether it/them to a 10MZ reference clock.

 

Agreed....but the DS is muddier than the Aries, which suggests the DS has more jitter?

[wanta911]

19 hours ago, dmormerod said:

Thinking I’ll give this a go for the clean side given the price...

 

US $65.80 | STUDER900 upgrade 15W Talema PSU DC Linear power supply 5V 7V 9V 12V 15V 18V 24V
https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/b9LLySZS

 

Yeah - I ordered a 5V one yesterday based on a recommendation I saw on another thread here where they tested a heap of other LPSs including some well known more expensive ones and this unit came out on top.....I can't remember the thread title or the poster 🙄

 

I have four 5V applications that are already using LPS but I am curious in comparing this (cheap) one to my current units.

[wanta911]

I ordered this one:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/STUDER900-Regulator-linear-power-supply-DC12V-2-5A-30W-DAC-Audio-Decoder-Professional-Power-Adapter/32821841363.html?spm=2114.11010108.01008.4.37c2649bRX5VWf

 

I'll report on how it goes.

[wanta911]

On 1/7/2019 at 2:20 PM, wanta911 said:

I ordered this one:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/STUDER900-Regulator-linear-power-supply-DC12V-2-5A-30W-DAC-Audio-Decoder-Professional-Power-Adapter/32821841363.html?spm=2114.11010108.01008.4.37c2649bRX5VWf

 

I'll report on how it goes.

 

Well I've had my new 5V Studer LPS for a few days now. Unfortunately I can't report on how it goes with the DS because I first tried it on my Chord Qutest DAC and it sounds SO good that I don't want to change it. The clean side of the DS is already getting the Ultracap 1.2 anyway.

[wanta911]

18 hours ago, Spenagio said:

Have you had chance to compare this relatively cheap LPS against any of your others? Thinking of ordering if it is likely to outperform the batteries I am currently using. I am in the UK, going to check if they will ship here.

 

I'm actually a little stunned by how good this power supply is. This Studer 900 design has a bit of a cult following it seems and there is quite a bit of talk about it, particularly on the DIY Audio sites. This includes some hypothesizing on trying to work out why it does such a good job. The board only sells for the princely sum of around 18 bucks. Maybe @ClothEars can shed some more light on it, it was his recommendation that got me on to it and because I'm stupid, I can't find some of the links he put up.

 

As to how it sounds with my Chord Qutest.....clarity and punch are all improved compared to my other 5V power supplies - it's so clean and removes a little bit of haziness that I didn't even know I had. It just sounds so focused, I'm particularly impressed with drums/kick drums and percussion in general, it hits so much harder. The bass is nice and tight without getting dry or losing too much extension. So in my setup it is a (big) winner!

 

Anyway for the minimal outlay it is well worth trying. 

 

Take a look at this:

 

[wanta911]

I went with the 5V version which is a selectable option. If this supplier doesn't have any available just search for "Studer900" on Aliexpress and use another supplier. I get the impression that a lot of these power supplies come from a central source and go through re-sellers. 

[wanta911]

I must have clocked up over 6 months with the DigiOne Signature so far using the Volumio OS and I am reasonably happy, particularly with the SQ. My chain is: NAS > DigiOne > MiniDSP DDRC-22D > DAC* > MF M6 500i amp > B&W 803D

 

* I alternate between 2 DACs, Metrum Pavane & Chord Qutest

 

I'm powering the dirty side with the HDPlex 200W LPS and the clean side with the Uptone JS-2.

 

For controlling playback I have used Volumio, Lumin app to Minimserver and MConnect to Minimserver. The Lumin and MConnect apps have good interfaces but playback can be annoyingly glitchy at times, with no sound despite the track playing and it can take a few tries to get the sound up and going. The Lumin app is also doing some screwy things just recently where adding anything to the queue stops playback. Volumio works pretty flawlessly but with one major drawback - my album artwork is all embedded so it doesn't display it and I'm not going to go through 000's of folders adding "folder.jpg" files.

 

I'm fascinated by the difference in sound between drawing from the NAS using Volumio and drawing via Minimserver using the other apps......and yes there is a difference.

 

 

 

[wanta911]

21 minutes ago, kotlarix said:

 

So you say Volumio sounds better? 

 

"Better" is a very subjective term.

 

I have read a lot on forums where something is declared "better" sound-wise but in my experience it is just.....different. There is a noticeable difference but I'm still undecided on which is better. Playback with Volumio without Minimserver seems to be a little more open or airy, the sound stage is a little wider. Which one is "better" probably varies with the source material and the other components in your particular setup. 

[wanta911]

On 6/2/2019 at 2:16 AM, dmormerod said:

Anyone have any thoughts on what the Optimum voltage is for the clean side?

 

After another merry-go-round of where I have my LPSs in my setup, I'm currently using the SBooster 5-6V on the clean side and up until now I have just left it at 5V. I will try 6V today and see if I can notice any difference but I guess it's not much of a voltage change?

[wanta911]

I pulled my Auralic Aries Femto out of hibernation last week and made sure it was properly warmed up to do another head to head with the Digione Signature with Volumio OS in my setup this weekend as a follow up to the original comparison I did in December last year. I've found that sometimes a revisit of a comparison can be surprising and question initial impressions.

 

Anyway, so I pitted the Aries using the SBooster LPS with Ultra against the Signature with HD Plex 200W LPS on the dirty side and SBooster 5-6V LPS on the clean side, both feeding the Chord Qutest DAC (mostly) and occasionally the Metrum Pavane via Mini DSP Dirac room correction. I also compared without any room correction direct to the DAC/s. The user interfaces were Auralic's Lightning DS on the Aries and Volumio on the Signature. Both units were fed via ethernet from my wireless bridge.

 

The Aries won handsomely on all fronts except the most important one......sound quality.

 

It really was a pleasure to use Lightning DS again - so easy to navigate, looks great and the Tidal integration is first class. Volumio is OK but it is a long way behind the higher end UI. I was actually using the Lumin app drawing from Minimserver with the Signature despite it being a little buggy, until a recent Volumio update created a new bug where adding a track or album to the playlist stopped playback 🙄

 

Interestingly I found the sound differences between the two much more pronounced this time around, I thought it was a close call the first time around and concluded that the Aries was probably better on some material but the Signature won out in most cases. The big difference between the two at the time was soundstage with the Signature having a much bigger more enveloping presentation. The difference in soundstage was obvious again but I can't say that I played a single track where I preferred the Aries this time around. There is an underlying edginess or brittleness to the Aries sound, the Signature in comparison is smoother with a silkier midrange and high frequencies but not at the expense of detail or picking up nuances in playback, in fact I would describe the Signature SQ as more detailed with better separation. Bass response was also better (a little more pronounced) on the Signature. 

 

In the past I have read that some users considered the Aries to be overly analytical and now I think I understand where they were coming from. Maybe I'm just used to the DS sound now but I can't help feeling that there is something in the Aries playback that shouldn't be there to create the edginess I hear, whatever it is I think it has some sort of masking effect, hence the inferior bass. As always YMMV but in my setup the Digione Signature is a clear winner on the SQ front. 

 

Now here's hoping that the Volumio UI improvements move ahead in leaps and bounds and I'll be very happy 😁