ALLO USBridge Signature

[allo.com]

You need to order the USB Sig + Digione Sig casing..

[Aprobin]

Hi @allo.com how about as a gesture of goodwill you allow early adopters, like myself, who ordered a usbridge signature before a case was available, the opportunity to order a case for the difference in cost between a usbridge signature and a usbridge signature player (I.e. $10 plus shipping or whatever the equivalent happens to be in euroland)?

[ronnie.sengupta]

Hi @allo.com

 

Very excited to get my hands on USBridge Sig after having used USBridge for over an year now.

 

I just switched over from my USBridge to USBridge Signature, unfortunately, I am hearing drop-outs from time to time on 44.1 PCM and with DSD I am hearing a lot of dropouts. I am running diet-pi with HQP NAA over a wired network and everything else in the setup is same as it was with USBridge.

 

FYI: USBridge was running DSD 512 over HQP NAA with zero dropouts all these days.

 

 

Should I be doing an OS Update?

 

 

 

 

 

[Tintinabulum]

No. That's not the issue.

[allo.com]

Hi

 

  we will check the issue , in our setup there are 0 dropouts. I think the issue is related to DietPI

 

India is on holiday until Wednesday , I am trying to get the tech team to take a look at it. What DAC are you using ?

[allo.com]

Is it possible to switch to Ropiee OS ?

 

 It should fix the issue with dropouts until we check with Dan the dietpi issue

[SgtDuke]

The case and documentation seem to imply that the two USB ports on the front are only for WiFi or BT dongles.  Is this correct or will any USB devices work with these ports, such as keyboard, mouse, hard drive with music files, etc.?

[odonnell]

1 hour ago, SgtDuke said:

The case and documentation seem to imply that the two USB ports on the front are only for WiFi or BT dongles.  Is this correct or will any USB devices work with these ports, such as keyboard, mouse, hard drive with music files, etc.?

I attached a Seagate Backup Plus 4GB USB drive to each of the WiFi/BT ports, and it appeared as /dev/sda /dev/sda1. A /dev/sg0 device also appeared, which I don't understand.  I was able to mount the disk and read it. I did not try to write it yet.

 

As I experimented and tried to figure out the best automounting method, it seemed that attaching and detaching may have messed up the rest of the file system on some occasions. But I don't have enough clear data to diagnose the problem yet. It always cleared up with a reboot. After a dietpi-update, the next attach/detach event did not cause a problem. That may be just random variation, or there may have been a fix to a file system bug in the update.

[ronnie.sengupta]

6 hours ago, allo.com said:

Hi

 

  we will check the issue , in our setup there are 0 dropouts. I think the issue is related to DietPI

 

India is on holiday until Wednesday , I am trying to get the tech team to take a look at it. What DAC are you using ?

Thank you. I am using T+A Dac 8 DSD. As mentioned earlier, it was working fine with USBridge all these days.

[allo.com]

Hi

 

  I spoke briefly to the main engineer .

 

USbridge Sig has the latest linux kernel , old USBridge has a old kernel that we have patched for many DACs.

 

  Even with the latest kernel we might need to patch some DACs drivers.

 

On DietPI , tested speed is 512 DSD and rock solid. If you have a issue with dropped signal (thats not related to ethernet) that means your DAC might need patching .

 

  I think tech support is in touch with Ronnie and I have asked for PM to tintinabum

[nbpf]

On 10/5/2019 at 9:28 AM, allo.com said:

You need to order the USB Sig + Digione Sig casing..

Great thanks! 

[ronnie.sengupta]

On 10/6/2019 at 8:03 PM, allo.com said:

Hi

 

  I spoke briefly to the main engineer .

 

USbridge Sig has the latest linux kernel , old USBridge has a old kernel that we have patched for many DACs.

 

  Even with the latest kernel we might need to patch some DACs drivers.

 

On DietPI , tested speed is 512 DSD and rock solid. If you have a issue with dropped signal (thats not related to ethernet) that means your DAC might need patching .

 

  I think tech support is in touch with Ronnie and I have asked for PM to tintinabum

Yes, I am working with support to sort out the issue. Will update here, once it's sorted out.

[chauphuong]

No user review yet?

[uniquesnowflake]

45 minutes ago, chauphuong said:

No user review yet?

 

I came across a couple from early adopters at diyaudio. I think it ranges from very positive to raving review. 

 

The rest of us are probably still waiting for the USB Sig+alu casing package.

[senior.god]

Dear all,

 

i currently use USBridge with Sparky.

I'm thinking about to change to USBridge Signature for two reasons:

1. Get rid of the old tainted kernel from allo an be able to use the standard kernel

2. increase sound quality.

 

Is anybody here who knows both USBridges and is able to answer question 2?

 

 

thanks in advance.

 

[Judelow]

Hi Allo team,

 

Without getting into subjective questions, why was the reason moving from the "old" usbridge (which was already very good) to the "signature" version? Is there any performance difference between the old and the new (noise, speed, heat...)?

[allo.com]

First , we moved to RPI compute module that has the latest kernel (compared with Usbridge that had a very old kernel)

 

 Second , we felt that from a hardware point we viwe we could do match better (in terms of filters , LDOs)

 

  Third , the new USbridge Sig has a RPI connector making it compatible with Digione or any other DAC hats.

[clipper]

3 hours ago, senior.god said:

Dear all,

 

i currently use USBridge with Sparky.

I'm thinking about to change to USBridge Signature for two reasons:

1. Get rid of the old tainted kernel from allo an be able to use the standard kernel

2. increase sound quality.

 

Is anybody here who knows both USBridges and is able to answer question 2?

 

 

thanks in advance.

 

I have the new USBridge Signature and the old USBridge.  

 

In my opinion, the USBridge Signature is significantly better in the sound quality department.

 

Also, it sounds great with Allo's Shanti power supply.

[Judelow]

46 minutes ago, allo.com said:

First , we moved to RPI compute module that has the latest kernel (compared with Usbridge that had a very old kernel)

 

 Second , we felt that from a hardware point we viwe we could do match better (in terms of filters , LDOs)

 

  Third , the new USbridge Sig has a RPI connector making it compatible with Digione or any other DAC hats.

Thanks for your answer.

One more (probably stupid, I have not searched), it works with Roon right?

[clipper]

5 minutes ago, Judelow said:

Thanks for your answer.

One more (probably stupid, I have not searched), it works with Roon right?

It does run Roon.

 

All the operating systems that you might use (for example, Diet Pi, GentooPlayer, Audiolinux) allow you to easily run RoonBridge.

 

I run Squeezelite on the Allo box and have Roon output to Squeezelite (you have to Enable Squeezebox Support in Roon's Setup Settings first) because to my ears it sounds a little better that way...  

[Aprobin]

4 hours ago, Judelow said:

Thanks for your answer.

One more (probably stupid, I have not searched), it works with Roon right?

I’m using Ropieee on mine it works absolutely fine

[matthias]

5 hours ago, clipper said:

I have the new USBridge Signature and the old USBridge.  

In my opinion, the USBridge Signature is significantly better in the sound quality Department.

Also, it sounds great with Allo's Shanti power supply.

 

Which OS do you have for the SIG?

Thanks

 

Matt

[gstew]

+100 to @matthias' comment's on the USBBridge Sig. I'm using RPi's as I2S sources for I2S DAC Hats like Allo's Katana and Ian Canada's boards. Even with Ian's FiFoPi in the circuit, replacing a stock RPi with a USBBridge Signature is a very significant upgrade across the board. 

 

I also have a couple of RPi 2B's I modified for all linear regulation for the 1.8V & 3.3V rails using LDOVR.com's Mezzanine board.  The USBBridge Sig's better them too.

 

One thing I haven't tried yet are larger DAC setups (Soekris, Twisted Pear) where they also have I2S reclocking (Soekris in the FPGA, my Twisted Pear setups with Ian's larger FIFO). BUT those  also worked better with linear-regulator-modified RPi's over stock RPi's, so I expect an improvement on those too. 

 

Greg in Mississippi

[matthias]

On ‎10‎/‎9‎/‎2019 at 6:53 AM, chauphuong said:

No user review yet?

 

Gregs review:

 

https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/vendor-s-bazaar/337859-shanti-dual-lps-5v-3a-5v-1-5a-60.html#post5929601

 

Matt

[matthias]

On ‎10‎/‎9‎/‎2019 at 6:53 AM, chauphuong said:

No user review yet?

 

weavers review:

 

https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/vendor-s-bazaar/337859-shanti-dual-lps-5v-3a-5v-1-5a-64.html#post5934007

 

Matt