Allo Digione Signature

[Spenagio]

15 minutes ago, Gustav9 said:

I have been happily using my DigiOne Signature using the latest version of Moode Player. I now want to use the Raspberry Pi as a Roon  endpoint. I have tried several times to install the Roon Bridge software using RoPieee on a new SD card  , but I cannot get this to work. What am I doing wrong? When loading RoPiee should I power the Pi from its own micro USB socket or should I use the two power sockets on the Allo DigiOne Sigature?

 

 

 

 

Use the two power inputs on the DS, one supplies power to the pi via the dirty side of the DS.

Try reflashing the SD card with ropiee.  Make sure you power the clean side 40 seconds or so before the dirty.

I have used ropiee for the last year or two for Roon, very stable. Now trying Dietpi to have the added flexibility of using Airplay with Tidal and Spotify, which has been useful for the family.

Also, download the pdf instructions for installing ropiee, you have to be patient, it tells you to go make a coffee whilst it installs! The step by step guide really helped me as someone new to Rpi.

[Gustav9]

Thanks, I have tried that, but it just doesn't work - flashing green and red lights, left for several hours - nothing installed and Pi not showing on the network

[Spenagio]

have you tried another SD card/different software?

[InfinitelyBaffled]

1 hour ago, Gustav9 said:

Thanks, I have tried that, but it just doesn't work - flashing green and red lights, left for several hours - nothing installed and Pi not showing on the network

 

You said you are using a new SD card. Can you try with a known good card? Power requirements do not change - clean and dirty side as before. After 15 minutes, can you see the pi's IP address on your router? Can you ping it?

 

I have found Ropieee to be rock solid with a Digione and a Signature. Great software. The first configuration boot does take about 15 minutes though.

[Gustav9]

Thank you, I will try Ropieee again with a known good micro SD card. If that does not work, I will load an SD card with DietPi and install Roon Bridge in that way.

[Spenagio]

Sure you won’t rule out having a faulty pi, recall someone else’s DS being bundled with a duff one. 

 

Hope you get it sorted 

[linuxfox]

On 1/23/2019 at 12:11 AM, Spenagio said:

I am getting a worryingly loud 'crackle' from my speakers when changing tracks sometimes in Roon. I think it may be when changing from one bit depth/format to another.

It happens to me too. I use official raspbian.

[Reverso]

90 Degree RCA Adapter

 

Cable routing was unwieldily with the DS, so I picked up a 90 Degree RCA Adapter for the coax out.  Now all of the cables can be routed to the back of the unit.  $10 well spent to tidy up the unit.

 

-Reverso

[RX8R3ROD]

6 minutes ago, Reverso said:

90 Degree RCA Adapter

 

Cable routing was unwieldily with the DS, so I picked up a 90 Degree RCA Adapter for the coax out.  Now all of the cables can be routed to the back of the unit.  $10 well spent to tidy up the unit.

 

-Reverso

 

Really neat idea IMHO! 👍 😁

[rruffin]

Anyone using the eMMC card option for memory with the DigiOne Signature?

 

https://allo.com/sparky/emmc.html#features

[quanghuy147]

Hi, today I did an extensive comparison between USB 3 of Schiit Yggy and Allo Signature. It's not hard to see that Allo Sign is more sparkling, less noise and everything is more separate and layered. Schiit USB 3's mid bass is stronger (which makes voices chestier than in reality) though bass is the same in both Allo Sign and Schiit.

 

However, possibly due to the fact that Allos Sign is more sparkling and less noise, the high-mid is quite sharp, quite ear-piercing and in many songs on my system. Schiit USB 3 though it has more noise, less resolution but not sharp and easier to listen to. 

 

Does Allo Sign sound sharp in your system?

 

Another thing is I use Allo Sign with Volumio, whenever a song ends and it moves to the next songs, Schiit will with produce a 'click' sound and the signal led blinks once. I dont' know why it has to be like this. This does not happen when I use Schiit USB 3. Can anyone help me to avoid this 'click' issue?

 

Thank you.

[rruffin]

44 minutes ago, quanghuy147 said:

Does Allo Sign sound sharp in your system?

 

No, the Signature does not sound sharp in my system, but the sound changes based on how the clean side is powered. I have found that the top end is the least "sharp" (or most beautiful) is when the clean side is powered by batteries...

[InfinitelyBaffled]

1 hour ago, quanghuy147 said:

Hi, today I did an extensive comparison between USB 3 of Schiit Yggy and Allo Signature. It's not hard to see that Allo Sign is more sparkling, less noise and everything is more separate and layered. Schiit USB 3's mid bass is stronger (which makes voices chestier than in reality) though bass is the same in both Allo Sign and Schiit.

 

However, possibly due to the fact that Allos Sign is more sparkling and less noise, the high-mid is quite sharp, quite ear-piercing and in many songs on my system. Schiit USB 3 though it has more noise, less resolution but not sharp and easier to listen to. 

 

Does Allo Sign sound sharp in your system?

 

Another thing is I use Allo Sign with Volumio, whenever a song ends and it moves to the next songs, Schiit will with produce a 'click' sound and the signal led blinks once. I dont' know why it has to be like this. This does not happen when I use Schiit USB 3. Can anyone help me to avoid this 'click' issue?

 

Thank you.

 

What was the source of the USB signal? And did you feed the Signature's SPDIF into the same Yggdrasil? Was the source material from both coming from the same device running Volumio?  Just trying to understand what you are comparing here.....

[quanghuy147]

13 minutes ago, InfinitelyBaffled said:

 

What was the source of the USB signal? And did you feed the Signature's SPDIF into the same Yggdrasil? Was the source material from both coming from the same device running Volumio?  Just trying to understand what you are comparing here.....

 

The source of USB Signal is laptop .

 

Laptop -- usb -- Yggy -- Amplifier -- speakers . This setup has no 'click'

 

Volumio -- Allo Sign -- Yggy -- Amplifier -- speakers . This setup has a 'click'

 

Thank you.

 

[nbpf]

3 hours ago, rruffin said:

Anyone using the eMMC card option for memory with the DigiOne Signature?

 

https://allo.com/sparky/emmc.html#features

No, what is meant to be the advantage of the eMMC over a standard micro SD card?

[RX8R3ROD]

59 minutes ago, rruffin said:

 

No, the Signature does not sound sharp in my system, but the sound changes based on how the clean side is powered. I have found that the top end is the least "sharp" (or most beautiful) is when the clean side is powered by batteries...

Same here, IME the Signature has a very insightful but nicely smooth sound, especially when battery-powered, and (IME in my system and with my audio preferences) extra-especially when the batteries are further filtered and regulated 😁.

 

And with good filtering and regulation the iFi iPower sounds pretty darn good, too!

[RX8R3ROD]

3 minutes ago, nbpf said:

No, what is meant to be the advantage of the eMMC over a standard micro SD card?

Good question, thanks 😀 I was wondering that too ...

[quanghuy147]

13 minutes ago, RX8R3ROD said:

Same here, IME the Signature has a very insightful but nicely smooth sound, especially when battery-powered, and (IME in my system and with my audio preferences) extra-especially when the batteries are further filtered and regulated 😁.

  

And with good filtering and regulation the iFi iPower sounds pretty darn good, too!

 

I use regular power adapter for PI and battery pack for clean power USB of Allo. Just to confirm, for the Allo Sign, there are clean USB input and dirty USB input. I just need to use battery pack for clean USB input? The dirty clean USB input is supposed to be used, isn't it?

[rruffin]

1 hour ago, RX8R3ROD said:

Good question, thanks 😀 I was wondering that too ...

 

I don't know, but it is an option when ordering on the Allo website. (I have a friend who is considering the Signature and asked me, so I though that I would post.)

 

Allo?

[RX8R3ROD]

Hi, the clean input is the one that definitely appears to benefit most from the battery power.

 

I think many ofus use a normal power adapter of some kind on the dirty side, but as my powering of the clean side has got better, I have been able to better appreciate that how we power the dirty side does make quite a difference to sound quality. That’s despite all that galvanic isolation etc in the Signature.

 

I’m currently running a grounded iPower 5v into 2 iFi DC iPurifier 2’s into the dirty side, and you can hear the effects of each iPurifier, just as you can measure their effect clearly on an oscilloscope.

 

However, whether that’s solely due to the impact the iPurifiers have on the input to the Pi and / or whether it’s because they help deal with all the noise the Pi generates on the DC line is hard to say. Probably a bit of both, I suspect.

 

I am currently working on a battery power solution for the Pi as some rough tests suggested there’s benefit to be had from this, but because the Pi apparently won’t accept more than 5.25V, the batteries (assuming use of 18650’s) must be regulated to between 5 and 5.25V.

 

Still, as for my tastes in my system the regulated batteries sound better PRaT-wise than unregulated ones, that can only be a good thing! 👍

[RX8R3ROD]

15 minutes ago, rruffin said:

 

I don't know, but it is an option when ordering on the Allo website. (I have a friend who is considering the Signature and asked me, so I though that I would post.)

 

Allo?

Ah, interesting one then. I must admit I’d never noticed... Doh! 

 

At least 2 for Allo then 😁

[quanghuy147]

1 hour ago, quanghuy147 said:

 

The source of USB Signal is laptop .

 

Laptop -- usb -- Yggy -- Amplifier -- speakers . This setup has no 'click'

 

Volumio -- Allo Sign -- Yggy -- Amplifier -- speakers . This setup has a 'click'

 

Thank you.

 

 

Here is the answer from Schiit, it took them 15mins to reply to me

 

"Yes, the clicking sound you are referring to is the Muting relay. When the incoming datastream is interrupted, Yggdrasil will mute. The relay is rated for 15 million cycles, so don’t stress about it. Or buy a better transport. Or use USB. "

 

So based on his answer, the question is "how can we configure Allo Sign, Volumio, RPI not to interrupt datastream after each song?"

 

Does anyone know? Please help

[quanghuy147]

I just found I have been using RPI and Allo Sign in a wrong way.

 

Please check the picture:

I plug dirty power into 1, clean power (battery pack into) 3

 

I watched on youtube and found that, they plug dirty power into 2 and clean power to 3. There is nothing to plug into 1.

 

The problem is that the way I plug it in, which is not as the one showed in youtube, still allow RPI to play well.

 

Are there 2 ways to power RPI+Allo?

 

 

[rruffin]

8 minutes ago, quanghuy147 said:

Are there 2 ways to power RPI+Allo?

 

No. The correct way is through the two USB-C connections (2 and 3).

 

The question is - do you still get the "clicks" with the Signature connected correctly? I would not be surprised (and there is a thread somewhere here where folks complain about this with the DigiOne series). If they just didn't sound so darn good...

 

Another point: Most folks use a preamplifier between their dac and amp. This give control (switching inputs and controlling volume, for example). People like us, however, have found that connecting the dac directly to the amp sounds better because there is less "stuff" in the signal path. Unfortunately, without a preamp (read: volume control), the dac, if it does not have a mute delay function like your Yggdrasil, might make some "pops" that are sent by the amplifier which could scare the neighbors with the loud sound. This is what I have been dealing with by using a 2001 era MSB dac with my DigiOne/Signature. Last weekend, I lent my original DigiOne to a friend with a Yggy and was so happy to just hear a click instead of a pop through the speakers...

 

(I have been trying to find someone familiar with the MSB Link who could tell me if there is an internal switch which would allow a mute delay.)

[clipper]

7 hours ago, quanghuy147 said:

 

Here is the answer from Schiit, it took them 15mins to reply to me

 

"Yes, the clicking sound you are referring to is the Muting relay. When the incoming datastream is interrupted, Yggdrasil will mute. The relay is rated for 15 million cycles, so don’t stress about it. Or buy a better transport. Or use USB. "

 

So based on his answer, the question is "how can we configure Allo Sign, Volumio, RPI not to interrupt datastream after each song?"

 

Does anyone know? Please help

I don't have any of this clicking or datastream interruption (in between every song) with a Digione Signature connected to a Yggdrasil.

 

I'm not saying it's Volumio, but I don't use Volumio...  

 

The DAC does click when the sampling rate of the song being played changes from one song to the next.  But it does this with every source I have ever had hooked up to it.