Allo Digione Signature

[keihin]

If you're using the power bank on the dirty side, and the Allo 18650 battery pack on the clean side, you may not see the shut-off issue.  The dirty side that powers the full RPi computer pulls significantly more current than the clean side, which powers only the clocks and audio output circuitry.  That additional current may be enough to prevent the power bank from shutting off.  In any case, I think you will be pleased with the sound.

[quanghuy147]

Keihin,

Thank you for your advice, I will do as instructed.

 

[RyanC]

Hi, I have been testing the Allo battery pack this week.  Using 4 x Panasonic 18650 3.7v, 3400mah Li-Ion batteries on the clean side, the signature has now been running for 120 hours and is still playing music.  Impressive.

[allo.com]

18 hours ago, RX8R3ROD said:

Great to hear you’re enjoying the Signature, it’s just fab, isn’t it?

 

Funnily enough (you may have seen this already) but there is a thread on power supply measurements that set out to compare the iFi iPower to traditional LPS’s,  etc. The IPower came out and measured very well at less than 1uv noise, but they also tested a phone charger (Apple one from memory?) which to me measured surprisingly decently and not massively worse than the iPower ??

 

That said, I sometimes think you could power the Signature via a hamster spinning a wheel and it would sound pretty good ... but certainly the better the supplies the better the sound!

A lot depends on how you measure... in our internal measuring , IFI is not good. We can see 2mV of voltage bleeding from AC side

[RX8R3ROD]

Indeed it does, gauge R&R applies here with a vengeance! ?

[rruffin]

11 hours ago, RX8R3ROD said:

Indeed it does, gauge R&R applies here with a vengeance! ?

 

Tried to understand this comment by looking up "gage R&R, but my stats background is poor. Can you say more about what you mean?

[RX8R3ROD]

Hi, and apologies for use of nerdy ? jargon. 

 

Gauge R&R is a statistical technique as you say and ignoring all the stats stuff is a method of determining whether measurements are consistent enough to be meaningful and trustworthy.

 

So it’s answering the question ‘if I measured something numerous times do I get a closely consistent and reliable result, and if a number of other people measured the same thing do they mostly get the same result too?’

 

The iPower is certainly a case where when various people measure it they do not necessarily get very similar results.

 

As far as I am aware Allo (and I think perhaps someone else?) has measured it and got some results which seem to show noise in the low mv range, while iFi and the thread I mentioned have measured it and got results of 1uv or less.

 

So who’s right?

 

There would seem to be some possibilities:

1. they both are right, because they’re measuring (perhaps very slightly) different things but referring to it in much the same way (perhaps to simplify it for us?)

2. they’re both wrong, because the true result is different to both sets of measures

3. one is right and the other wrong, due to oddities in the way the iPower was measured or the results interpreted 

4. Some combination of the above 

 

I don’t think we’ll ever know though if I had to bet on it I might go for an initial guess of 1. (and perhaps also a possibility of a little bit of 3.) but IMHO this does demonstrate the limits of a wholly ‘objective’ approach to audio as measurements, like politicians, can lie.

Albeit measurements, perhaps unlike politicians, can do it inadvertently due to problems with Gauge R&R, etc.

 

Ultimately IMHO it’s what it sounds like that really matters (at least to us consumers) and FWIW IME the iPower is, like any power supply, not perfect.

 

In my system with my power supply

- in its native form it’s sounds good but not as good as a battery ? for the Signature

- grounded (as per the Swenson mod) and treated as a ‘virtual battery’ that needs some more filtering, storage and regulation it sounds somewhat better than a battery for the Signature.

 

But of course that’s in my system with my power supply and my listening preferences ... a whole new set of potential Gauge R&R problems ... ?

 

Hope that helps, and again apologies for use of nerdy terms which don’t help anyone!

 

 

 

 

 

[Nay]

Hi,

 

All new to this so need a little help.

I have the Digione Signature Player, SD Card 16GB, DietPi + ALLO GUI, RPI Version :B+

I am trying to play music with it connected to my Dac by BNC but am getting no sound even though i can see it on my network and select DietPi as renderer and it shows the music playing using BubbleUPnP.

Is this not plug and play ready or do i have to load any drivers?

 

Any help appreciated.

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[purehifi192]

7 hours ago, Nay said:

Hi,

 

All new to this so need a little help.

I have the Digione Signature Player, SD Card 16GB, DietPi + ALLO GUI, RPI Version :B+

I am trying to play music with it connected to my Dac by BNC but am getting no sound even though i can see it on my network and select DietPi as renderer and it shows the music playing using BubbleUPnP.

Is this not plug and play ready or do i have to load any drivers?

 

Any help appreciated.

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You probably need to set the audio out to Allo Digione with dietpi.  Either run dietpi-config from the command line or bring up the web UI to set this.

[Nay]

Hi,

Yes you are completely correct i managed to find this out by getting the IP address of my connected DietPi and getting into Web UI and changing sound card to digione.

Thank you for your reply nice to know this forum does help out if needed.

[Nay]

Hi again,

Have another issue which i hope someone can help out with.

When playing the start of a song on an album the first second or two there is a dropout in the sound it will do this on every beginning of a song on a album.

What do you think is the cause have i got a setting wrong or maybe i need to update some software?

Any help appreciated?

 

Thank you.

[Nay]

3 hours ago, Nay said:

Hi again,

Have another issue which i hope someone can help out with.

When playing the start of a song on an album the first second or two there is a dropout in the sound it will do this on every beginning of a song on a album.

What do you think is the cause have i got a setting wrong or maybe i need to update some software?

Any help appreciated?

 

Thank you.

I have now solved this issue it was not the Digione it was my Upscaler causing it.

[Nay]

Digione Signature does not like being connected to M Scaler for some unknown reason causes a split second drop in sound on every start of songs.

[RyanC]

On 11/29/2018 at 1:19 PM, RyanC said:

Hi, I have been testing the Allo battery pack this week.  Using 4 x Panasonic 18650 3.7v, 3400mah Li-Ion batteries on the clean side, the signature has now been running for 120 hours and is still playing music.  Impressive.

 

It has now been running for 24 hrs/day for 8 days and still playing music!

[clipper]

13 minutes ago, RyanC said:

 

It has now been running for 24 hrs/day for 8 days and still playing music!

Just like Hanukkah.

 

 

[quanghuy147]

Hi, 

My Signature arrived, I downloaded Dietpi to SD card, put in the Raspberry Pi. I use diet-config to connect it to Wifi, then go to its IP address to change the soundcard to "Digione". 

 

Then what?   I'm lost here. 

 

On Windows, I use Foobar which is controlled remotely by a smartphone, can I find something similar here.

 

PS: I don't want to use Roon since it's not free.

 

Thank you for your help!

 

 

[quanghuy147]

hi, 

I have downloaded a Signalist player on Windows to play music and stream to Rapsberry+Signature. 

 

However, I have an issue, the Source light on my DAC keep on and off, and the music is on and off (stuttering quite frequently (about 20 times a minute).

 

I am using 2 dirty  supply for both boards (the batteries have not arrived yet).

 

Please help!

 

Thank you.

[Johnjc]

I had a similar issue with a highly modified Caiman SEG I think it was a software issue between the seg and the signature. Was in correspondence with Allo and tried to find solutions but in the end had to return. Hope you can find a solution but think a issue between the 2 devices. 

In my case it would not keep a lock on the signal.

[clipper]

1 hour ago, quanghuy147 said:

hi, 

I have downloaded a Signalist player on Windows to play music and stream to Rapsberry+Signature. 

 

However, I have an issue, the Source light on my DAC keep on and off, and the music is on and off (stuttering quite frequently (about 20 times a minute).

 

I am using 2 dirty  supply for both boards (the batteries have not arrived yet).

 

Please help!

 

Thank you.

What is the DAC?  And what do your HQPlayer setting look like?

 

 

[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.

[LowMidHigh]

Has anyone compared the Signature to SOtM sMS-200Ultra? I know the latter is in a different price range, but many people report on better SQ with spdif over USB. 

 

[nbpf]

Is there a way to switch off (or reduce the intensity of) the green power led of the DigiOne Signature hat? Thanks, nbpf

[quanghuy147]

Hi everyone,

Good news, the stuttering issue has been reduced dramatically when I switched to Volumio (from Dietpi). Now it stutter about 1 time every 5 mins.

 

Now I am using battery pack for the clean power side. Normal Raspberry power adapter for the Pi.

 

I don't know that Signature needs time to burn in or not but here is my amateur review of the sound after 2 hours listening.

 

-The sound stage is wider

-The guitar sound is sharper, more accurate

-The voice of female singers when they reach high notes us sharp to the point of a little bit harsh (this could be due to my DAC)

-The bass is tighter and cleaner

-The separation of musical instruments are considerably improved

-the background of music is darker

 

In general, the sound is considerably better, more accurate. If I upgrade amplifier or DAC to get this improvement, I think I would have to spend at least more than $1000.

 

In addition now I just let the Pi and Signature run 24/7 , and control playlist from my phone, which is very convenient. I wonder how long the Allo battery pack (4 batteries) can feed the Signature.

 

I don't know if Signature needs to be burnt in but for now, I am satisfied with the result.

 

Bravo Allo!

[RX8R3ROD]

Great to hear that it’s working now and you’re enjoying it! ?

 

A recent post seemed to give some very encouraging figures for battery life, so Zi imagine you have a good few days even if you leave it running all the time.

 

Though an in-line dc switch (just a very few money units) from eBay or Amazon gives nice, easy control of the power in your battery pack, and should improve battery life even further.

[quanghuy147]

40 minutes ago, RX8R3ROD said:

Great to hear that it’s working now and you’re enjoying it! ?

 

A recent post seemed to give some very encouraging figures for battery life, so Zi imagine you have a good few days even if you leave it running all the time.

 

Though an in-line dc switch (just a very few money units) from eBay or Amazon gives nice, easy control of the power in your battery pack, and should improve battery life even further.

 

Regarding the in-line dc switch, can I just power off the Signature and keep the Pi running then when I need to play music I can switch on the Signature?