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Allo Digione Signature


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I think unfortunately not; we’re meant to power up the signature first. Although in practice because the signature powers up almost instantly and the Pi takes a few seconds or so we can turn them on together.

 

But I’ve never experienced Pi boot problems after turning it off, so I’d just turn both off.

 

And yes, I think that should work v nicely. ?

 

I have ordered myself an Allo Katana on the strength of the Signature to see how that sounds, and my intention is to initially run the op amp board via 2 sets of LiPo battery packs regulated to + and - 15v, and I have ordered pretty much exactly the same things as you linked to, to make turning the battery packs on and off somewhat easier. ?

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I see, so what you mean is that we should use the 2 switches, 1 for PI and 1 for Signature. And we should turn off both after use to prolong the life of the battery pack?

Thanks :)

 

By the way, how is the Allo Katana compared to any DAC that you have? Can you do a mini review, I am interested in Katana too but not sure if they are better than DACs that cost around $1000

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That’s my thinking (FWIW). 

 

My Katana was apparently dispatched today, so I should be able to give some feedback in a a week or so.

 

I’ll be comparing it to a Teac Ud501 which I very marginally prefer to a Naim NAC272 DAC stage driven by an XPS power supply.

 

So that may, or may not, be of use ...

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Thank you for the confirmation.

 

Regarding the DAC, for sure it's useful to me. It's interesting that TEAC DAC is better than NAC 272 since NAC is much more expensive.

 

I have not heard both so your info is helpful to me since next year perhaps I will have budget to upgrade my DAC. I am looking into MDHT Orchid DAC (which is $1100).

 

 

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Pleased that will be helpful; watch this space then ?

 

I know it’s difficult in a world where we all almost inevitably equate price to performance (and manufacturers have got very good at playing that message) but after years of buying ever more expensive items, sometimes as much as the price of a small car, I had a couple of epiphanies:

 

- I bought a pair of (admittedly rebuilt and modified by OTA) 50 year old Quad ESL’s and - for what is important to me sonically - they trashed my very recent active Meridian speakers

- so I bought a ~30+ year old Naim amp set up out of interest and modified it including using the RSL cards from the USA (which IME are totally excellent BTW, all power to Kit Ryan ?). It easily bested my recent £10k+ Naim setup in the aspects of music playback that are important to me

- I was given the Teac DAC as a present, and much to my surprise I preferred it when I compared it to the DAC element of the NAC272, even when XPS powered

 

Which is not to say say that cheap stuff, or old stuff, or old cheap stuff is automatically better (or cheaper) than costly new equipment... but I can say that I am musically happier with the above kit than some much, much more costly items I’ve bought recently! ?

 

And to some extent I feel like an idiot for spending all that money when I could get significantly better performance (for my tastes) for waaay less money. Doh!

 

My only excuse is I didn’t know better at the time.

 

The Signature is just the latest of those epiphanies, thoroughly outperforming my (inevitably costly ?) CD player into either Teac DAC or NAC272. 

 

I suspect the Katana may be another, given Allo’s track record, so it has to be worth a shot. (And I imagine they’ll eventually do a Signature version, mmmmm) 

 

And maybe we are at an inflection point in the industry where, like many years ago, people who are willing to explore and experiment can once again get great sound that rivals or bests popular mainstream commercial product costing far, far more? ?

 

it seems sn exciting time to be around (though perhaps not necessarily quite so exciting for some of the establishment brands?).

 

Bravo Allo! 

 

 

 

 

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Hi RX8R3ROD and all,

 

this is a nice description on how things can go with a hifi system. Seems like we are in the same boat – I prefer my entry level AudioNote pre/power combo from the mid nineties, my entry level AN DAC (only a few years younger) and DIY speakers based upon vintage Saba Greencones from the 1950's much over most recent and more expensive systems. I heard partially refurbished Quads last year and I can understand why you like them! Actually they share some fundamental qualities with the Sabas.

 

To come back to the topic:

 

I have the Digione signature for quite some time now. Until then I had the Pi2Design 502DAC which is a very good SPDIF HAT too. But as soon as the Digione signature was on top of the RPi it was clear it would remain there. My RPi runs the minimalistic piCorePlayer software with a separate Logitech Media Server on a NAS. pCP is set up in such a way that it forces LMS to send out PCM. That means the RPi + pCP have nothing else to do than stream audiodata, no server activities, no upsampling, no conversion tasks. Wifi is switched off too. This results in a very low power consumption of the RPi which is way below the official 3A, probably around 500 mA!

 

That allowed me to use a Li-Ion battery PSU I already had with two outlets for the whole package: One outlet with unregulated 7.5V direct out of battery (able to deliver high currents for short times), perfect for the clean side, and 5V out of a LT7805 regulator which would be perfect for the dirty side. At this point the first reports here on CA came up which strongly indicated that batteries would be the way to go with Digione signature. My main concern was that my particular PSU would defeat the galvanic isolation between RPi and Digione signature when I would feed both of them in parallel from the very same battery (which I would prefer in order to not have too many devices around).

Therefore I wanted to have something else as a reference which would allow to retain the galvanic isolation. Also I was interested to find how a high quality LPSU would perform. Luckily I got the opportunity to get loaned a two railed shunt regulated PSU which years ago was strongly recommended to me by a german DIYer for an RPi/SPDIF HAT setup, the Thel "Black Pulsar". This unit is meant to supply audio gear with an average power consumption up to 500 mA. Ithas two independent rails galvanically isolated from each other.

 

Within one evening, my questions got clarified for me: It turned out that feeding RPi and Digione signature (or dirty and clean side) from the two rails of the shunt regulated PSU brought out much deeper and powerfull bass. Going on with some solo performances of piano and guitar it furthermore revealed that vividness and immediacy was better with the Black Pulsar.

Having the Black Pulsar feeding only the dirty side and battery the clean side was more or less like feeding the combo from battery completely; in any case inferior to an all Black Pulsar approach.

From that time the Black Pulsar remained and the battery went back into the closet. At no time since then there was any powering problem with the RPi by the way.

 

Later on I added a a filtering board (also from Thel) with a load of capacitors on it, which further improved the performance: Ambience became a bit larger and the imaging a bit more precise. And when we're here already, introducing a Cisco 2960 switch between network wall-outlet and RPi made another nice improvement, actually even more recognizable than the filtering board. (You can read about the Cisco 2960 switch on Naim forums)

 

At that point I can say that this is easily the best audio reproduction I ever had!

 

Meanwhile I received a nicely oversized toroid transformer from Terry (Canterbury Windings) who – as far as I know – also makes the transformers for the more expensive PSUs from Paul Hynes. Unfortunately I haven't found the time to try it until now.

 

What needs to be done is making some short and decent DC cable and get rid of the adapters. If Allo is reading: What about providing some nice DIY USB-C plugs?

 

Best regards

Stefan

 

P.S. If anyone is interested in the Black Pulsar PSU – unfortunately just when I decided to buy one, the last unit was sold. I got myself a second hand unit. I can tell you they are rare. Mr. Hartwig launched a new version of the Black Pulsar meanwhile which now is offered on his website. While the basic construction and performance seems to have remained the same, there are some things that I find better with the older one:

First: The new version includes a Talema transformer on board, the older one came without any transformer. You had to / was allowed to choose your own, incl. different output voltages for other applications.

Second: The old unit had a dial on board to limit current of each of the two rails independently (the nature of a shunt regulated supply means that all current not needed by the supplied unit gets dissipated as heat; thus current should be limited to about double the average current demand of the consumer being supplied), the new one has not. You would need to exchange a resistor to do so – or I guess you could as well ask Mr. Hartwig to do so.

Another very similar alternative to Black Pulsar is the PlacidHD PSU from Twisted Pear Audio. This is a full DIY approach though.

 

P.P.S. Just to make it clear: I am not affiliated with Thel or Mr. Hartwig and I don't get any benefit from reporting about it here.

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Hi Stefan &,

 

I rather like the boat we, and many others, sound like we’re in!

 

And thanks for these insights.

 

It seems you are certainly not alone in liking shunt regulated supplies. There’s a thread at diyaudio.com if you’ve not seen it called Getting the best out of Allo.com’s Katana DAC and the shunt supplies get some very, very positive comments indeed.

 

In fact they also seem to be suggesting much the kind of transformative effects you’ve clearly experienced!

 

Sadly I’ve not tried one myself (hadn’t even heard of such a thing until recently), but looks like I’ll very much need to add it to the list! ?

 

I think you also raise some really good points for powering the Signature in general.

 

IME, and I think this fits with your experience(?) batteries are really good, but not necessarily the ultimate solution. 

 

I’m not sure if there is such a thing as ‘the’ ultimate solution as I suspect it is system, mains-supply and personal preference-dependent, but so far my personal experiential performance ladder goes something like:

 

1. no name switch mode supply

2. Power bank

3. Named, audio-oriented switch mode supply OR decent LPS

4. Allo battery supply

5. 3. With better regs and capacitors (that’s better by ear, not just by the spec sheet)

6. 3. With superregs and supercapacitors, and further filtration 

7. Out there (for me) be dragons ... inc things possibly like (in no particular order) ... shunt supplies, superregulated battery supplies with really low ESR supercaps (which is what I’m experimenting with at present, as batteries whilst having v smooth and low noise power delivery also generally tend to have a somewhat slower transient power delivery than really fast supercaps, as I understand it), LPS1.2, Allo Nirvana, and ...

 

I guess what’s so nice about the Signature is that it will sound really good with pretty-much any of the above, but the more care we pay to powering it the better and better it gets? This is something for which I think Allo should be praised!

 

And thank you for raising at least my awareness of shunt regulated supplies - much appreciated! ?? And also the effects of different OS’s as well; something I’ve somewhat pooh-poohed until now, but which your post is making me think twice or thrice about!!

 

And please do tell about any further experiments. ?

 

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On 12/1/2018 at 3:46 PM, Nay said:

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.

This was not the case i eventually found that it was in fact DietPi causing the sound loss.

I have now loaded Volumio and works 100% with no sound issues.

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On 12/6/2018 at 12:29 PM, RX8R3ROD said:

That’s my thinking (FWIW). 

 

My Katana was apparently dispatched today, so I should be able to give some feedback in a a week or so.

 

I’ll be comparing it to a Teac Ud501 which I very marginally prefer to a Naim NAC272 DAC stage driven by an XPS power supply.

 

So that may, or may not, be of use ...

 

You make me want to try TEAC DAC :) I found on website there is TEAC 503. Do you think it's better than 501?

 

 

12 hours ago, steklo said:

Hi RX8R3ROD and all,

 

this is a nice description on how things can go with a hifi system. Seems like we are in the same boat – I prefer my entry level AudioNote pre/power combo from the mid nineties, my entry level AN DAC (only a few years younger) and DIY speakers based upon vintage Saba Greencones from the 1950's much over most recent and more expensive systems. I heard partially refurbished Quads last year and I can understand why you like them! Actually they share some fundamental qualities with the Sabas.

 

To come back to the topic:

 

I have the Digione signature for quite some time now. Until then I had the Pi2Design 502DAC which is a very good SPDIF HAT too. But as soon as the Digione signature was on top of the RPi it was clear it would remain there. My RPi runs the minimalistic piCorePlayer software with a separate Logitech Media Server on a NAS. pCP is set up in such a way that it forces LMS to send out PCM. That means the RPi + pCP have nothing else to do than stream audiodata, no server activities, no upsampling, no conversion tasks. Wifi is switched off too. This results in a very low power consumption of the RPi which is way below the official 3A, probably around 500 mA!

 

That allowed me to use a Li-Ion battery PSU I already had with two outlets for the whole package: One outlet with unregulated 7.5V direct out of battery (able to deliver high currents for short times), perfect for the clean side, and 5V out of a LT7805 regulator which would be perfect for the dirty side. At this point the first reports here on CA came up which strongly indicated that batteries would be the way to go with Digione signature. My main concern was that my particular PSU would defeat the galvanic isolation between RPi and Digione signature when I would feed both of them in parallel from the very same battery (which I would prefer in order to not have too many devices around).

Therefore I wanted to have something else as a reference which would allow to retain the galvanic isolation. Also I was interested to find how a high quality LPSU would perform. Luckily I got the opportunity to get loaned a two railed shunt regulated PSU which years ago was strongly recommended to me by a german DIYer for an RPi/SPDIF HAT setup, the Thel "Black Pulsar". This unit is meant to supply audio gear with an average power consumption up to 500 mA. Ithas two independent rails galvanically isolated from each other.

 

Within one evening, my questions got clarified for me: It turned out that feeding RPi and Digione signature (or dirty and clean side) from the two rails of the shunt regulated PSU brought out much deeper and powerfull bass. Going on with some solo performances of piano and guitar it furthermore revealed that vividness and immediacy was better with the Black Pulsar.

Having the Black Pulsar feeding only the dirty side and battery the clean side was more or less like feeding the combo from battery completely; in any case inferior to an all Black Pulsar approach.

From that time the Black Pulsar remained and the battery went back into the closet. At no time since then there was any powering problem with the RPi by the way.

 

Later on I added a a filtering board (also from Thel) with a load of capacitors on it, which further improved the performance: Ambience became a bit larger and the imaging a bit more precise. And when we're here already, introducing a Cisco 2960 switch between network wall-outlet and RPi made another nice improvement, actually even more recognizable than the filtering board. (You can read about the Cisco 2960 switch on Naim forums)

 

At that point I can say that this is easily the best audio reproduction I ever had!

 

Meanwhile I received a nicely oversized toroid transformer from Terry (Canterbury Windings) who – as far as I know – also makes the transformers for the more expensive PSUs from Paul Hynes. Unfortunately I haven't found the time to try it until now.

 

What needs to be done is making some short and decent DC cable and get rid of the adapters. If Allo is reading: What about providing some nice DIY USB-C plugs? 

 

Best regards

Stefan

 

P.S. If anyone is interested in the Black Pulsar PSU – unfortunately just when I decided to buy one, the last unit was sold. I got myself a second hand unit. I can tell you they are rare. Mr. Hartwig launched a new version of the Black Pulsar meanwhile which now is offered on his website. While the basic construction and performance seems to have remained the same, there are some things that I find better with the older one:

First: The new version includes a Talema transformer on board, the older one came without any transformer. You had to / was allowed to choose your own, incl. different output voltages for other applications.

Second: The old unit had a dial on board to limit current of each of the two rails independently (the nature of a shunt regulated supply means that all current not needed by the supplied unit gets dissipated as heat; thus current should be limited to about double the average current demand of the consumer being supplied), the new one has not. You would need to exchange a resistor to do so – or I guess you could as well ask Mr. Hartwig to do so.

Another very similar alternative to Black Pulsar is the PlacidHD PSU from Twisted Pear Audio. This is a full DIY approach though.

 

P.P.S. Just to make it clear: I am not affiliated with Thel or Mr. Hartwig and I don't get any benefit from reporting about it here.

 

Regarding the Cisco switch. Does it have fan on it? Does it make noise? Do you mean you use its POE feature of the switch to power the Raspberry?

 

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

 

Thank you.

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Hi quanghuy,

 

I believe the Ud501 to be a very good DAC, but unfortunately I’ve not had the opportunity to hear the 503.

 

And IME feeding the Raspberry Pi (the dirty side) cleaner power does usefully help overall sound quality.

 

Just one word of caution around all this, Zthough, is that we can potentially all see different things as important and worthwhile improvements, because different aspects of audio are important to us.

 

To give a personal example, my partner and I seem to value very things listening to music.

 

She almost entirely values tonality... that’s what appears to fundamentally move her about music.

 

But what bothers me is that awful effect - so common in Hi-Fi systems but absolutely never in real life - when an instrument or voice goes loud and it drags the others with it? I can’t stand it, as it totally messes up the rhythm for me.

 

What one of us thinks an improvement may be a downgrade for the other.

 

One of the very best systems I have ever heard - many years ago - was active Linn Kans driven by Naim 250’s. That had timing by the bucket-load, yet a number of people who heard it thought it truly dreadful.

 

What I (think I) eventually worked out was that listeners / reviewers - who often informed my purchases, or where I started listening at least - seemed to have all sorts of unconscious preferences. And if those preferences were significantly different to mine, buying a product they liked or recommended was just a really bad idea.

 

Which sort of brings me back to your question around the Teac DAC. 

 

I believe the 501 to be a good DAC, and I very marginally prefer it to the DAC in the NAC272 etc ... but that unfortunately doesn’t necessarily mean you will.

 

It’s of course impossible that we can hear all the gear we are interested in and compare it before we buy something. So we have to be guided by people’s comments to some degree or another.

 

But I think you may increase your chances of audio happiness from these (and potentially waste less money ?) if you are able to establish what things are important to the someone who is saying ‘this is an improvement’ and how they relate to what is important to you?

 

So for the record, I’m a PRaT (many wouldn’t disagree ?) type listener, and you should probably see any of my comments in that context. ?

 

 

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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 ?

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17 minutes ago, wanta911 said:

 

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?

 

I would have thought it was system dependant.

 

It's also possible to use two regulated supplies, in series, the first would go the PI, the second to the audio board. Or 2 x LPS-1.2 one for each section. Then again, these are peanut power devices, so a separate supply is just as easy, but not ifi PSU.

AS Profile Equipment List        Say NO to MQA

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6 minutes ago, One and a half said:

 

I would have thought it was system dependant.

 

It's also possible to use two regulated supplies, in series, the first would go the PI, the second to the audio board. Or 2 x LPS-1.2 one for each section. Then again, these are peanut power devices, so a separate supply is just as easy, but not ifi PSU.

Is there something wrong with the (JS grounded) ifi 5V/2.5A PSU?

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1 minute ago, nbpf said:

Is there something wrong with the (JS grounded) ifi 5V/2.5A PSU?

 

Yes, it is an SMPS design, despite how much claimed no noise it produces. I have two/three of these bundled with micro USB3/itube. In every case, the ifi device was markedly improved by substituting the ifi PSU with a linear power supply, in my case from Acopian.

AS Profile Equipment List        Say NO to MQA

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29 minutes ago, wanta911 said:

 

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 ?

I have yet to see a careful and detailed official review of the DigiOne Signature, what came out so far was pretty miserable in my view. At this point it is probably more sensible to rely on the findings of DigiOne Signature users that have played around with different power supplies like RX8R3ROD. If you try different ways of powering the DigiOne Signature, please post your findings!

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3 minutes ago, One and a half said:

 

Yes, it is an SMPS design, despite how much claimed no noise it produces. I have two/three of these bundled with micro USB3/itube. In every case, the ifi device was markedly improved by substituting the ifi PSU with a linear power supply, in my case from Acopian.

I see, thanks! I am currently powering the dirty side of the DigiOne Signature with a JS-2 and the clean side with a LPS-1.2 powered by the same JS-2. I can easily replace the JS-2 on the dirty side with a grounded ifi 5V/2.5A and test if I can hear any deterioration of the sound quality.

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1 minute ago, nbpf said:

I see, thanks! I am currently powering the dirty side of the DigiOne Signature with a JS-2 and the clean side with a LPS-1.2 powered by the same JS-2. I can easily replace the JS-2 on the dirty side with a grounded ifi 5V/2.5A and test if I can hear any deterioration of the sound quality.

Cool! Let us know how it goes.

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Please do! ??

 

My guess would be you perhaps experience a small but noticeable deterioration? 

 

But I really do think a lot of this is electricity supply / system / what is important to us as individual listener-dependent.

 

I say this as I have also experienced an (what I would describe as) over-smoothing of the sound at some point with some version of a power supply to the dirty side. Which I didn’t really like, ... but others may well think that’s an improvement. ?

 

So I guess saying what’s an improvement and what isn’t is fairly straightforward for us as individuals but less so as it potentially applies to others? ?

 

I’m even beginning to wonder whether we should be tuning our power supplies as we ‘tune’ our speakers (through placement and orientation and / or DSP ?) to suit system, music and personal preferences.

 

... I know, that way lies madness ... ?

 

I’m basically a PRaT fan, my comments around improvements should be seen in that context.

 

 

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4 hours ago, One and a half said:

Cool! Let us know how it goes.

I have compared the UpTone Audio JS-2 and the ifi iPower 5V/2.5A for powering the dirty side of a DigiOne Signature on three tracks that I think I know decently well:

 

1) Bach Arias. Ophelie Gaillard, Sandrine Piau, Ensemble Pulcinella. 01 Mein glaubiges Herze BWV 68. 24bits/88.2kHz.

 

2) Sibelius,  Violin concert. Lisa Batiashvili, Staatskapelle Berlin, Daniel Barenboim. 01 Allegro moderato. 24bits/96kHz.

 

3) Brahms, Symphony No. 3. Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Riccardo Chailly. 01 Allegro con brio. 24bits/96kHz.

 

In both cases the clean side was powered by an UpTone Audio LPS-1.2 itself powered through the second output of the JS-2. All tracks were on a Samsung T5 1TB SSD attached to the RPi 3B+ hosting the DigiOne Signature. The files were served by MinimServer and rendered by upmpdcli (and therefore MPD) running on the RPi 3B+ hosting the DigiOne Signature. This was connected via Naim DC-1 BNC-BNC cable to a Naim DAC itself connected to a Supernait 2. I have listened through Sennheiser HD800 headphones connected to the headphone output of the Supernait 2. This is probably sub-optimal for critical listening. 

 

A comparison is necessarily difficult because one cannot switch the PSUs without rebooting the RPi but my impression was that with the iPower the presentation was slightly more involving and perhaps a little bit edgier. With the JS-2 the presentation was perhaps more natural (brass instruments, perhaps also violins) and maybe a little bit smoother. The voltages measured at the end of the cables going into the USB C to 5.5/2.5mm adapter connected to the dirty side of the Signature (about 1.5m long for both the ifi and the JS-2) were 5.12V (iPower) and 4.91V (JS-2).

 

As RX8R3ROD puts it, the differences are likely within the range of subjective preferences. I tend to prefer the JS-2 presentation but I would not have any concern feeding the dirty side of my DigiOne Signature with an iPower PSU.

 

Hope this helps. If you play around with different PSUs for the DigiOne Signature, please post your findings.  

 

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5 minutes ago, nbpf said:

I have compared the UpTone Audio JS-2 and the ifi iPower 5V/2.5A for powering the dirty side of a DigiOne Signature on three tracks that I think I know decently well:

 

1) Bach Arias. Ophelie Gaillard, Sandrine Piau, Ensemble Pulcinella. 01 Mein glaubiges Herze BWV 68. 24bits/88.2kHz.

 

2) Sibelius,  Violin concert. Lisa Batiashvili, Staatskapelle Berlin, Daniel Barenboim. 01 Allegro moderato. 24bits/96kHz.

 

3) Brahms, Symphony No. 3. Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Riccardo Chailly. 01 Allegro con brio. 24bits/96kHz.

 

In both cases the clean side was powered by an UpTone Audio LPS-1.2 itself powered through the second output of the JS-2. All tracks were on a Samsung T5 1TB SSD attached to the RPi 3B+ hosting the DigiOne Signature. The files were served by MinimServer and rendered by upmpdcli (and therefore MPD) running on the RPi 3B+ hosting the DigiOne Signature. This was connected via Naim DC-1 BNC-BNC cable to a Naim DAC itself connected to a Supernait 2. I have listened through Sennheiser HD800 headphones connected to the headphone output of the Supernait 2. This is probably sub-optimal for critical listening. 

 

A comparison is necessarily difficult because one cannot switch the PSUs without rebooting the RPi but my impression was that with the iPower the presentation was slightly more involving and perhaps a little bit edgier. With the JS-2 the presentation was perhaps more natural (brass instruments, perhaps also violins) and maybe a little bit smoother. The voltages measured at the end of the cables going into the USB C to 5.5/2.5mm adapter connected to the dirty side of the Signature (about 1.5m long for both the ifi and the JS-2) were 5.12V (iPower) and 4.91V (JS-2).

 

As RX8R3ROD puts it, the differences are likely within the range of subjective preferences. I tend to prefer the JS-2 presentation but I would not have any concern feeding the dirty side of my DigiOne Signature with an iPower PSU.

 

Hope this helps. If you play around with different PSUs for the DigiOne Signature, please post your findings.  

 

Going the exta mile, well done. 

 

And if you feed the dirty side with the "house" charger, what difference does it make? 

Stereo

[Genelec 1032C x 2 + 7360 x 2] <== [MC3+USB x 3 <-- REF10 SE120] <== [AERIS G2] <== [EtherRegen x 3]
Chain switchable to [Genelec 8331 x 2 + 7350]


Surround

[Genelec 1032C x 3 + 8431 x 2  + 7360 x 2] <== [MiniDSP U-DIO8] <== [Mac Mini] 

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