Allo Digione Signature

[nbpf]

On 3/18/2019 at 10:27 PM, Tintinabulum said:

I'm using a  JS-2 for both sides and it sounds awesome. I've not compared though, I don't have any other nice PSs. I may try the Allo PS in the dirty side. Out of curiosity, what is producing the noise, RPi components?

I have tried powering both the RPi side and the clean side with the JS-2 and to me it sounds absolutely fine: slightly warmer and perhaps more natural than powering the RPi side with the JS-2 and the clean side with the LPS-1.2.

 

Then I have tried powering the RPi side with the LPS-1.2 and the clean side with the JS-2. That also sounds very fine. Reverting back to powering the clean side with the LPS-1.2 (and the RPi side with the JS-2) confirmed my impressions.

 

As wrap-up I would say that I prefer powering the clean side with the JS-2 (and the RPi side with either the JS-2 or with the LPS-1.2). Perhaps the LPS-1.2 is more transparent but to me the JS-2 sounds more natural. With the JS-2, the bass line is more articulated and vocals more natural. 

 

Please, take my observations with some skepticism: in a different setup my (temporary) conclusions might have been very different and others might prefer powering the clean side of the DigiOne Signature with the LPS-1.2 in my setup.

     

[nbpf]

4 minutes ago, xrqp said:

nbpf, if you power the clean board, as you did, with JS-2 or LPS 1.2, BUT instead power Rpi with the SMPS that the signature player comes with, how much worse is it?   I am hoping it is only very slightly worse.

I haven't tried that but before buying the JS-2 I have powered the RPi side with a grounded ifi 5V/2.5A PSU (clean side with LPS-1.2) and I thought it was fine. I guess it very much depends on the specific system and certainly also on the specific listening habits. Thus, as I wrote, all these observations have to be taken with care. I think that RX8R3ROD has done more systematic tests with different power supplies and concluded that the DigiOne Signature (again, in his system, to his ears) is also quite sensitive to the quality of the power supply used to power the RPi side. If you try different PSUs for the DigiOne Signature, please report your findings!    

[nbpf]

Some more data about the energy consumption of the DigiOne Signature:

 

Running MinimServer and upmpdcli at 1GHz CFUfreq in my minimal Raspbian Lite system (no HDMI output, no bluetooth, no  internal sound card, etc) and with a Samsung T5 1TB SSD connected via USB draws about 0.5A  from the power supply of the RPi side. 

 

Shutting down the USB bus (and thus using the DigiOne Signature as a pure wlan renderer) as suggested in https://soundcheck-audio.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html, brings down the consumption to about 0.24A. I have put

 

   /home/pi/minim/minimserver/bin/stopall
    sudo umount /media/sd
    echo '1-1' | sudo tee /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/unbind

 

in a script. This allows me to shutdown the USB bus and use the DS as a pure renderer whenever I fancy to do so. Perhaps worth considering when choosing a PSU for the DS. Best, nbpf

[nbpf]

On 4/30/2019 at 12:26 PM, VG said:

Dera all,

I am a new user of Signature DigiOne. Which I like a lot. Fantastic sound with Dave!

The only problem i have that its lose signal synchronization sometimes when i switch track.

Strating the same song over again, help. It's not very often, but i have this in both Volumio and Moode.

I play files form USB stick. DigiOne rev 1.1. Clean Power from battery nad Original RPi power supply.

Do any of you have this issue sometimes? Or it should be rock solid?

Thank you for you help.

Do the tracks have different bit depths or sampling frequencies? The Signature should be rock solid but I seem to remember that the same or a similar issue has been reported in conjunction with certain dacs (or with Roon, I do not remember exactly) in these forums. I use the DigiOne Signature under Raspbian Lite running upmpdcli (https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/upmpdcli/) and MinimServer (https://minimserver.com/) and I have never had any problem. 

[nbpf]

On 6/3/2019 at 3:35 AM, wanta911 said:

I pulled my Auralic Aries Femto out of hibernation last week and made sure it was properly warmed up to do another head to head with the Digione Signature with Volumio OS in my setup this weekend as a follow up to the original comparison I did in December last year. I've found that sometimes a revisit of a comparison can be surprising and question initial impressions.

 

Anyway, so I pitted the Aries using the SBooster LPS with Ultra against the Signature with HD Plex 200W LPS on the dirty side and SBooster 5-6V LPS on the clean side, both feeding the Chord Qutest DAC (mostly) and occasionally the Metrum Pavane via Mini DSP Dirac room correction. I also compared without any room correction direct to the DAC/s. The user interfaces were Auralic's Lightning DS on the Aries and Volumio on the Signature. Both units were fed via ethernet from my wireless bridge.

 

The Aries won handsomely on all fronts except the most important one......sound quality.

 

It really was a pleasure to use Lightning DS again - so easy to navigate, looks great and the Tidal integration is first class. Volumio is OK but it is a long way behind the higher end UI. I was actually using the Lumin app drawing from Minimserver with the Signature despite it being a little buggy, until a recent Volumio update created a new bug where adding a track or album to the playlist stopped playback 🙄

 

Interestingly I found the sound differences between the two much more pronounced this time around, I thought it was a close call the first time around and concluded that the Aries was probably better on some material but the Signature won out in most cases. The big difference between the two at the time was soundstage with the Signature having a much bigger more enveloping presentation. The difference in soundstage was obvious again but I can't say that I played a single track where I preferred the Aries this time around. There is an underlying edginess or brittleness to the Aries sound, the Signature in comparison is smoother with a silkier midrange and high frequencies but not at the expense of detail or picking up nuances in playback, in fact I would describe the Signature SQ as more detailed with better separation. Bass response was also better (a little more pronounced) on the Signature. 

 

In the past I have read that some users considered the Aries to be overly analytical and now I think I understand where they were coming from. Maybe I'm just used to the DS sound now but I can't help feeling that there is something in the Aries playback that shouldn't be there to create the edginess I hear, whatever it is I think it has some sort of masking effect, hence the inferior bass. As always YMMV but in my setup the Digione Signature is a clear winner on the SQ front. 

 

Now here's hoping that the Volumio UI improvements move ahead in leaps and bounds and I'll be very happy 😁

Thanks for the report! Why are you actually using Volumio if you do not like its user interface? I also gave it a try some time ago and found its UI to be quite irritating. You can run upmpdcli and Minimserver in a standard Raspbian lite installation instead of Volumio. This gives you all the advantages of a UPnP server+client solution and you can browse your music collection using Linn Kazoo, BubbleUPnP, Lumin or any other UPnP compatible control point.   

[nbpf]

4 hours ago, wanta911 said:

 

Good point, I'll give it a try. I already have Minimserver on my NAS & the Lumin app on my iPad.....so is it a case of just flashing a micro SD card with Raspbian Lite & installing it in my DS? Will Lumin then see the DS or do I have to do anything else?

If you already have Minimserver running on your NAS, you only have to install upmpdcli (and hence MPD, see https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/upmpdcli/) under Raspbian Lite.

 

Once this is done, Lumin (Linn Kazoo, BubbleUPnP, etc.) will see both Minimserver (as a library) and upmpdcli (as a renderer) and you will be able to select albums or tracks for replay.

 

There are a few optimizations that you can do to Raspbian. But these are easily implemented and we can discuss them in detail once you are there.

[nbpf]

5 hours ago, n1kcha said:

I am interested in similar configuration and i have a couple of questions:

1) I have my music on QNAP NAS and i have also Asset server installed there. Need to install Minimserver or Asset can do the same job?

2) How to install and configure Digione Signature driver on Rasbian Lite? There is documentation on this for Dietpi but i don't know how to do it on Rasbian Lite...

1) You do not need to install MinimServer if you already have Asset running. upmpdcli can communicate with any UPnP server.

 

2) You only need to add

dtoverlay=allo-digione

 

to /boot/config.txt to have the driver for the DigiOne Signature (and for the standard DigiOne) available after boot. In order to be able to replay music through upmpdcli you have of course to configure upmpdcli and hence MPD. This is very easy, just check the respective documentations. 

[nbpf]

On 8/10/2019 at 10:52 AM, Tucker said:

Is it possible to run a type of "server" software on digione signature itself so it really can act as a server and not just like a endpoint. Like Bluesound Node 2 which I also have. I only use tidal and internet radio, no nas etc.

I have been running MinimServer and upmpdcli (and, hence, MPD) as an intergrated server + client solution in a minimal Raspbian Lite system for many years. The data are kept in a 1TB SSD attached to the RPi. I have not noticed any degradation of the sound quality as compared to running the RPi + DigiOne Signature as a pure endpoint. I think that I have posted power consumption figures for both setups in this forum.  

[nbpf]

On 10/26/2019 at 6:27 AM, quanghuy147 said:

Hello, 

The case of Digione Signature is by acrylic , which is not vibration isolated. It's very light, not heavy so using isolation feet is not effective.  I am wondering if there is any way we can improve it's vibration isolation. 

Could you share some ideas? 

Thank you. 

I use a standard Pimoroni Pibow case for my DigiOne Signature. It is placed in a cabinet and on a rubber mat and the cabinet is fixed to a wall. For what kind of vibrations do you need isolation? 

[nbpf]

On 12/15/2019 at 4:10 PM, Boleary3 said:

I found that attaching music directly to the Digione, either memory stick or hard drive, degrades sound quality:  more noise and glare. I would think that using wifi would do the same so I have wifi turned off, I believe, in my digione. In my set up, my music hard drive is connected to my "music server" lap top. I use Audirvana player on the server laptop as my music player. Audirvana automatically sees the digione as a upnp device on the network. Both the laptop and digione are hardwired to a network  switch. Because you can increase sound quality  adjusting audirvana settings this set up has worked out best for me. I have directly compared my set up to plugging the music drive directly into the digione, either usb stick or external HD, and using Volumio, or moode as the music player software and its hands down better streaming the music file to the digione via audirvana. Also I have found using Volumio as the OS for the digione is the most musical compared to Moode and Dietpi. I also use Baaske filters ( http://baaske-medical.de/en/isolation/ethernet-isolation/?p=1) where the respective network cables enter the switch, the laptop and the digione. You can get them used on ebay for around $50. YMMV.

I have a 1TB Samsung T5 attached to the RPi 3B+ that hosts my DigiOne Signature. An instance of MinimServer also runs on that RPi. After boot, I can replay from the T5 via the MinimServer running on the RPi. Alternatively, I can turn off MinimServer and the USB bus (and, thus, wired ethernet) and replay from a server (also running MinimServer) via wireless. Or unmount the T5, turn off MinimServer and replay from the same server via wired ethernet. I freely cannot detect significant differences in the sound quality in my system and through my ears. Perhaps the rendition has a little bit more weight (or noise?) when replaying from the attached T5. As a default, I typically turn off MinimServer and the USB bus on the RPi that hosts the DigiOne Signature. This reduces the overall consumption of the RPi + DigiOne Signature to about 300mA which is a very low load for the JS-2 that feeds the RPi side of the DigiOne Signature.    

[nbpf]

2 minutes ago, zacho said:

Do you think the benefits of lowering power consumption outweighs the detrimental effect of WiFi in an audio system? Or is that an area you haven't yet explored

I haven't explored the idea systematically: as a default, I do not have a wired connection and I stream either form the local T5 or over the wireless. I typically lay down a wired connection only temporarily for testing purposes. But I was surprised to see how much power can be saved by turning off the USB bus and I like to do so to keep the JS-2 just warm. I think the new RPi 4 has separated USB bus and wired ethernet interface. Thus, it should be possible to switch off the USB bus while still keeping a wired ethernet connection alive.This is also something that I have not checked so far.

[nbpf]

On 4/29/2020 at 9:14 AM, smodtactical said:

How does the digione sig compare to more pricey streamers like lumin u1 mini + sbooster, bdp3 etc?

I guess it crucially depends on the power supplies used on the DigiOne Signature, which also need to be taken into account in price comparisons.

[nbpf]

On 4/25/2020 at 12:41 AM, Tucker said:

Hi

 

What are the best sounding distro for rpi digione signature, someone listened to them all? Some told moode but personally I find dietpi-allo-gui sounds better. 

And how do I configure the distro for best sound with oversampling and more?

I have tried Volumio, DietPi and GenTooPlayer against a minimal Raspbian Lite distribution that I have been using for years. I did not like the user interface of Volumio and I find it very difficult to compare more than 2 distributions sound wise. At the moment I regularly use GetTooPlayer. I find that it sounds a bit better than my own minimal distribution and I like its user interface and minimalist approach. The developer of GenTooPlayer is very supportive.   

[nbpf]

On 8/3/2020 at 4:01 PM, Kamuisan said:

I have the USBridge Signature + Digione Signature Combo + Allo Shanti. I bought the combo to power my active speakers based on Hypex amplifiers, that have spdif input. Very happy with the performance of USBridge Signature + Allo Shanti - the USB signal quality is fantastic! On the other hand the Digione Signature is so so - very clean sound but thin and lacking body. When I compare it to USBridge Signature + Gustard U12 USB - SPDIF converter, there is no comparison. The Gustard U12 is much more musical, Digione Signature sound "digital" and thin in comparison. I am wondering if I am doing something wrong. I am powering both USBridge Signature and Digione Signature with Allo Shanti. Because of the initial so so impressions with Digione Signature, I did not put much hours on the unit - I prefer using USBridge Signature + Gustard U12. Will "burning in" Digione Signature change the sound of the unit for the better? What else can I do to improve the sound of Digione Signature? I would prefer to use Digione Signature instead of my current setup - one USB cable, power cable and additional box less. I am using Moode at this point, the latest version.

 

Thank you for any advice,

Marcin

I use the DigiOne Signature since it came out, I freely do not think that "burning in" the device will change its sound significantly. Perhaps the U12 has a higher output voltage than the DigiOne Signature? Perhaps it is a better device than the DigiOne Signature or perhaps it just better fits your musical taste?