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Allo Digione Signature


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4 hours ago, mtavares said:

Considering that you have the USBridge Signature and the Digione Signature, have you compare the USB outuput versus RCA/BNC outputs? Please, could you share you experience?

 

Tricky that.....the Naim DAC does not have USB input (except for USB memory sticks), So I'd be using nDAC/XPS from the DigiOneSig and a Musical Fidelity VDAC2/VPSU from the USBridgeSig. Both would feed my NAC82-active SBLs system

 

I'll give it a go though. Might be interesting :)

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10 hours ago, matthias said:

 

Did you or some audio friends compare the Cuinas vs Allo Shanti?

Thanks

 

Matt

No....I’d bought the Cuinas before the Shanti and USBridge Signature came out.

I was fortunate in that John K had sent one out on a “Grand Tour” of the UK so I could have it on loan for a few days (see Pink Fish forum for reports). I was able to compare it with various combinations of RPi Official PSU, iFi wall wart and battery packs. 

 

I was sufficiently impressed that I bought one.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 6 months later...

So I’ve got USBridgeSig+DigiOneSig+Shanti, connected to my nDAC (with olive XPS) by DC-1 (BNC). The nDAC signal ground switch is set to “Floating”

 

I have a chassis ground strap between the USBridgeSig case and the Shanti case.

 

It all seems to work very nicely.

 

 

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5 hours ago, sihctr said:

Thanks for the response. Not sure if nDAC can get its signal grounding via the SPDIF connection, and therefore if "Floating" is the "correct" setting. That's probably a question for the Naim forum though! 🙂

 

Anyway, it seems safe to ground the RPI via a USB port as far as I can tell, so I will try it out in due course. The experiment should only cost 2-3 euros for the cheapest USB cable I can find!

 

Cheers!

 

I've got mine floating because  I read the manual literally, and because there is a Naim CD player connected in the system the UM says "floating". However the CDX is not connected to the DAC so my interpretation may be completely and utterly wrong! Who knows ?? LOL

 

Might be worth trying both settings to see which sounds better - at least we won't do any damage (according to the the user manual). 

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

The short answer is yes.

 

I have tried this running both BNC and RCA cables to my Naim DAC. I was interested in whether there was any difference between the nDAC's BNC input and it's RCA input. Software was MoOde.

 

I could then simply switch between the inputs on the nDAC.

 

Result was that they both worked 😃

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not really. the nDAC-XPS is a serious bit of kit, and one could reasonably expect the input buffers to be well designed, but even so has been reported as being responsive to "improved input waveform quality", so....

 

......the DigiOneSig does benefit from decent power supplies. I tried a Cuinas Audio Supercapacitator PS in place of the RPi PSU plus battery pack, and that really did make a difference.

I now run it with an Allo Shanti - equally good.

 

so the mantra is "sort out the PSUs on the RPi first"

 

FWW, i currently use a Naim DC1 BNC-BNC between D1S & nDAC. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
10 hours ago, Confused said:

Thanks for the input.  It looks to me like I just need to go for the Allo Digione Signature Player, this comes with the RPi 3 B, which based on the posts above looks like the best option.

 

@suzywong - I am not quite sure I understand the benefit from mounting the DigiOneSig on a USBrisgeSig?  Does this offer better sound quality or just better functionality with a USB option?

technically, the USBridgeSig, is claimed to have better supply regulation, and more of it - IIRC, 30 low noise regs, each powering a specific part of the board. Also AIUI, the USB out is decoupled from the Ethernet input, which should help the output waveform timing. I believe this is now done in the RPi4

 

in the analogue audio domain, more and better regulation can improve the SQ - you only have to spend an afternoon playing around with Naim amps/CDPs/streamers/Crossovers in their various supply configurations to hear clearly the  audible effects as you go "up" the PSU hierarchy*

 

* I do have sympathy with the argument that "having paid several thousand for a shiny new Naim amp/CDP/streamer, one should not then have to fork out another few grand to make it sound best - but that's for another thread.

 

in the digital domain, it is less clear cut ( coz it's all 1's & 0s, innit?), but reducing system noise is still inherently beneficial, which appeases my elect. eng. sensibilities :)

 

subjectively, i found that replacing the rpi3b with a usbsig had minimal effect, but then again i am taking the audio stream from the HAT mounted DigiOneSig. It is intended for use in a USB centric streaming solution. My nDAC, is SPDIF only, which is why I use the DigiOneSig.

 

one day I'll do some experiments with my Musical Fidelity DAC which has both USB & RCA SPDIF inputs.

 

So I can't claim there's any SQ benefit to replacing the RPi3B with a USBBridgeSig.....but the case is nice, and sits sympathetically alongside my Naim active system.  :D

 

However I reiterate, that the power supplies have the greatest effect on SQ, so a Shanti, or similar, should be the priority.

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certainly, I found that changing the power supply to the DigiOneSig made a  significant difference, as did Heckyman; indeed our trials with the Cuinas Audio Supercapacitor PS on a RPi3+DigiOneSig are well documented in a thread on Pink Fish Media. In my case including two barrel to USB-C adaptor cables from Cuinas to the DigiOneSig. Even more interesting was at that time, the two secondary supply outputs on the Cuinas were connected together, which was supposed to detrimental to the DigiOneSig. Nevertheless,  the improvement of the Cuinas over "RPi PSU on the dirty side and battery pack on the clean side" was clear and substantial.

 

IIRC the sequence, I then invested in the USBridgeSig as the host from the DigiOneSig (still with the Cuinas supply), followed a month or so later by the Shanti replacing the Cuinas. Neither of those changes had the same impact that the Cuinas did, but then neither was detrimental to SQ. So I've left it at that.

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