Allo Digione Signature

[nbpf]

48 minutes ago, LowMidHigh said:

Going the exta mile, well done. 

 

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

Good question but I am tired now. I have given the Allo PSU (5.14V) a short try. My impression is that it sounds more like the JS-2 than like the iPower but that it is less involving than the JS-2. I would have to spend more time to come up with a definite answer though.

[nbpf]

54 minutes ago, RX8R3ROD said:

Many thanks nbpf, and a really nicely framed and written summary IMHO, if you don’t mind my saying so? ??

Thanks! I have to admit that I find this test difficult. I prefer having two devices connected to the DAC with two identical cables and then switch the DAC input on short (10-30 seconds) pieces of music.

[Dradder]

Caveat lector; my first post here.

 

Took some doing, but I managed to get Volumio running on a Digione Signature Player, and am very happy with it.

 

My question: Are the Player's USB ports all simultaneously active? I've got two external hard disk drives plugged into the Player, but the Volumio library feature only seems to be seeing the files on one of the drives. Is that a Digione issue, or a Volumio issue?

 

Thanks!

[dmormerod]

After spending most of the evening listening and swapping back & forth I do have to say that in my system at least, and ifi powering the dirty side and battery the clean is noticeably better than the supplied psu supplying the dirty and the ifi powering the clean. 

 

So so my question now is whether the LPS 1.2 is better than the batteries?

[RX8R3ROD]

3 hours ago, dmormerod said:

After spending most of the evening listening and swapping back & forth I do have to say that in my system at least, and ifi powering the dirty side and battery the clean is noticeably better than the supplied psu supplying the dirty and the ifi powering the clean. 

 

So so my question now is whether the LPS 1.2 is better than the batteries?

 

I believe the answer to this is yes.

 

I say this on the basis that a 12 / 9 v iPower, fed into plenty of supercap storage and superregulated (wired with superwire, isolated by superisolators, in a supercabinet blah, blah ... ? ... ?) is, for my PRaT-based sensibilities (and my other half’s tonality-based (... but suspiciously toe-tapping ...) preferences, better than the batteries.

 

In my system with my electricity supply, anyway.

 

However, whether that’s (or other good mains-powered solutions are) better than batteries that are given the ‘super’cap/reg treatment using particularly fast supercaps is something I plan to discover over Christmas, as almost all the parts have arrived now, except the regulators which are on their way. ?

 

No Christmas pudding for me ...

 

 

[RX8R3ROD]

4 hours ago, Dradder said:

Caveat lector; my first post here.

 

Took some doing, but I managed to get Volumio running on a Digione Signature Player, and am very happy with it.

 

My question: Are the Player's USB ports all simultaneously active? I've got two external hard disk drives plugged into the Player, but the Volumio library feature only seems to be seeing the files on one of the drives. Is that a Digione issue, or a Volumio issue?

 

Thanks!

This - may - be a limitation of the power the Raspberry Pi can provide to USB ports, depending on how power-hungry your drives are, and whatever else you have connected to the Pi.

 

A number of Pi users recommend using powered usb hubs for multiple hdd’s.

 

if you have one knocking around it might be worth a try?

[nbpf]

4 hours ago, Dradder said:

Caveat lector; my first post here.

 

Took some doing, but I managed to get Volumio running on a Digione Signature Player, and am very happy with it.

 

My question: Are the Player's USB ports all simultaneously active? I've got two external hard disk drives plugged into the Player, but the Volumio library feature only seems to be seeing the files on one of the drives. Is that a Digione issue, or a Volumio issue?

 

Thanks!

Can you check if both drives are mounted and can be accessed? I seem to remember that in Volumio one has to explicitly add a drive for this to be indexed. But I have only played around with Volumio for a few minutes, thus I might be mistaken.

[Dradder]

33 minutes ago, nbpf said:

Can you check if both drives are mounted and can be accessed? I seem to remember that in Volumio one has to explicitly add a drive for this to be indexed. But I have only played around with Volumio for a few minutes, thus I might be mistaken.

 

Not sure how I would check that in the Volumio operating system. The lights on both drives come on while attached to the Digione Signature Player, so they appear to both be receiving electricity from the USB ports. I don't recall seeing anything in the Allo documentation about adding drives, though I certainly might've missed that.

[LowMidHigh]

Guys...What's the consensus, or the trending solution, for the dirty side? (Without going overboard a la SJ-2...)

Preparing my setup for a new Signature.

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

[RX8R3ROD]

Hope you enjoy your new Signature!

 

Try a look at this page and the last ... I think you’ll get a pretty good idea ?

[LowMidHigh]

20 minutes ago, RX8R3ROD said:

Hope you enjoy your new Signature!

 

Try a look at this page and the last ... I think you’ll get a pretty good idea ?

 

Had to cover a lot of ground for relatively slim pickings...

The only clean solution, so it would seem, is the the Acopian. https://www.acopian.com/store/1-(4).aspx

Anyone knows which of their products is suitable for dirty side?

 

 

[nbpf]

6 hours ago, Dradder said:

 

Not sure how I would check that in the Volumio operating system. The lights on both drives come on while attached to the Digione Signature Player, so they appear to both be receiving electricity from the USB ports. I don't recall seeing anything in the Allo documentation about adding drives, though I certainly might've missed that.

I think that one always has to add a drive to the library for this to be scanned, no matter whether the drive is a local USB drive, a NAS drive or something else. See, for instance, https://volumio.github.io/docs/FAQs/Audio_Sources.html. 

[nbpf]

1 hour ago, LowMidHigh said:

Guys...What's the consensus, or the trending solution, for the dirty side? (Without going overboard a la SJ-2...)

Preparing my setup for a new Signature.

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

With so different subjective preferences, so many options available and the power supply for the dirty side being (hopefully) less critical than the power supply for the clean side, I doubt that there will be any consensus. If you already have a decent 5V/2A PSU, just try it. Otherwise, as I wrote, I think that a grounded ifi iPower is a very viable solution. 

[LowMidHigh]

14 minutes ago, nbpf said:

With so different subjective preferences, so many options available and the power supply for the dirty side being (hopefully) less critical than the power supply for the clean side, I doubt that there will be any consensus. If you already have a decent 5V/2A PSU, just try it. Otherwise, as I wrote, I think that a grounded ifi iPower is a very viable solution. 

 

Can you me a lead how to ground the iPower?

[nbpf]

3 minutes ago, LowMidHigh said:

 

Can you me a lead how to ground the iPower?

The first post in 

is the reference reading. Best, nbpf

[RX8R3ROD]

Hi, apoligies if you didn’t find my ‘last page or two’ comment earlier very helpful. 

 

As nbpf suggested, the ‘how to ground an iFi iPower’ is recommended reading.

 

You nay also read that iPowers are noisy, the work of the devil, etc and there’s some discussion on this earlier on in this thread.

 

This link (it’s one of several on the web) compares the iPower to various other options inc traditional LPS’s and again, makes interesting reading.

[RX8R3ROD]

 

[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....

 

 

[nbpf]

9 minutes ago, wanta911 said:

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....

 

 

I am looking forward to read your findings! It is a shame that Allo do not seem to be able to implement a good quality control of the assembly process. In reassembling the DigiOne Signature boards, I have found something like https://www.amazon.de/Bolt-Base-Nylon-Unterlegscheibe-Plastik-Stück/dp/B00LCGI94K to be useful. One has to be a bit careful: a too tight connection can set the boards under stress, a too loose connection can lead to undervoltage errors.

[RX8R3ROD]

Me too looking forward to hearing what you find ?

[quanghuy147]

I have got inline DC Switch for the Allo battery pack and RPi.

 

There is a external hard drive plugged to RPi, this hard drive uses power from RPi.

 

What I experience is that, when I used the switch  like this Power outlet --> 5V power adapter --> Switch --> 2.5mm-to-5mm adapter --> RPi, the hard drive light is on but I couldn't access its data.

 

Only when I remove the switch could I access the data on hard drive. Please note that there is

 

Does anyone know what's wrong with the switch?

 

In addition, I also used the switch for the Allo battery pack like this: Battery pack -->  Switch --> 2.5mm-to-5mm adapter --> 5.5mm type C adapter --> Signature. I wonder if this would degrade the purity of the battery pack?

 

I bought 2 Switches on Amazon for $6. They look quite cheap , I don't know if their quality can affect the Signature?

 

Thank you.

[RX8R3ROD]

Hi, 

 

I assume both switches have the same effect with hdd access?

 

If so, is there a rating on the switch / packaging / advertising... it could be possible that the RPi + hdd exceeds the switch rating, which may possibly cause problems? I think from memory mine were rated at 2 amps and up to 24v?

 

There are many reports of people experiencing Pi hdd access problems and solving them via a powered usb hub, or similar.

 

Are you able to power the hdd separately temporarily? If you can and the problem goes away that may indicate a load issue ... or 2 really dodgy switches... 

 

As to whether the switches affect the quality of the power supply you’d think it might to some extent, wouldn’t you? But then on the Pi kit we use all sorts of cheap, horrible little adapters and cables (something nbpf has commented on a few times, I think?), and it sounds great anyway. No Nordost Odin here ... though perhaps that’s a market opportunity ?

 

I get back home at the end of the week so sometime over the weekend or next week I’ll see if I can measure any effect on my ‘scope.

 

But you do raise a really good point; perhaps better cabling would make the sound even better? I do have a recollection years ago of buying an upgrade dc cable (about £150, Or thereabout, I think) for the feed between the power supply and the motor of a Michell Gyrodeck, and there being a definite improvement ...

[nbpf]

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. 

[RX8R3ROD]

Thanks for the heads-up on these! ?

 

I guess as they’ve just arrived you’ve not yet had much of a chance to relax, put your feet up, and have a really good listen?

 

But when you do, please do also tell us your findings!! ?

[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?