Pi 2 Design Mercury Streamer

[bobfa]

https://www.pi2design.com/mercury-streamer.html

 

 

The Mercury Steamer is headed to beta this month.  Most of the talk is over on the Super Audio Best Friends.  I am on the beta list and will start out testing PiCorePlayer.  I will keep things here to a summary.

 

Bob

Here are a couple of pictures from the Pi2Design website:

 

 

 

[AudioDoctor]

Is it a Pi Compute Module on a board with all the other connections and an NVME drive?

 

edit: I found it, this is a pretty cool device.

[dericchan1]

I have a pretty high expectation of this, currently using a pi2aes hat and are extremely impressed with the sound quality through coax. Michael Kelly the owner, claim the mercury will have a further noise/jitter reduction of 20% from the already impressive pi2aes!!!

 

Deric

[bobfa]

For me the promise is multi-fold.  I hope combine the server and streamer into one and get better SQ.  Part of that is software...  I am a bit giddy!

[dericchan1]

I don’t really have any incentive to upgrade from my pi2aes to this. It’s for my bedroom system and it’s already pretty solid sounding 

[AudioDoctor]

This thing could run HQP OS for ARM and that would be pretty interesting.

[bobfa]

3 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

This thing could run HQP OS for ARM and that would be pretty interesting.

I will have to ask Jussi!

[AudioDoctor]

4 minutes ago, bobfa said:

I will have to ask Jussi!

 

I have ran it on a Pi4 4GB before.

[dericchan1]

I have run hqplayer embedded with regular rpi4 4G before, has no trouble with pcm 24/384 sinc M 

 

Deric

[chauphuong]

Is there anything better in design of this one when compared with Allo Usbridge Signature (besides more connections)?

[bobfa]

2 minutes ago, chauphuong said:

Is there anything better in design of this one when compared with Allo Usbridge Signature (besides more connections)?

The design of the Mercury Streamer uses the CM4 module which has major compute performance improvements over the CM3 in the USBridge Sig.  The Allo product is focused on USB output.  The Mercury is focused on other digital outputs like their Pi2AES product. I have no idea what the USB output of the Mercury will do for us.

 

The addition of local NVME storage in the Mercury  is to me a huge step forward.

 

In the Allo you can add the Digione Signature SPDIF output HAT which sounds pretty darn good.  In my testing the Pi2AES is better to my ear, but there are a lot of variables.

 

RJF

[chauphuong]

28 minutes ago, bobfa said:

The design of the Mercury Streamer uses the CM4 module which has major compute performance improvements over the CM3 in the USBridge Sig.  The Allo product is focused on USB output.  The Mercury is focused on other digital outputs like their Pi2AES product. I have no idea what the USB output of the Mercury will do for us.

 

The addition of local NVME storage in the Mercury  is to me a huge step forward.

 

In the Allo you can add the Digione Signature SPDIF output HAT which sounds pretty darn good.  In my testing the Pi2AES is better to my ear, but there are a lot of variables.

 

RJF

Thanks. In fact you can replace Pi3 compute module on Usbridge Sig with Pi4 module. I use Roon, Minimserver and Jplay Femto Server so local storage would make little sense.

[bobfa]

My beta unit arrived today.  Michael installed Volumio so I am set for the first tests

 

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0wGQD2D7GkMcKY

 

 

Internet radio playing away!

 

[dericchan1]

10 minutes ago, bobfa said:

My beta unit arrived today.  Michael installed Volumio so I am set for the first tests

 

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0wGQD2D7GkMcKY

 

 

Internet radio playing away!

 

Look forward to your comments to see if it’s a worth while upgrade from the pi2aes!! 
 

still not a fan of the transparent acrylic case tho

 

Deric

[bobfa]

I have Volumio updated, a 4TB NVME Drive installed, WiFI, going.  Music playing.

 

See the photo album above for more image

[sonodynesrp205]

very interesting. Thank you

 

regards,
Simon

[Ghettocowboy23]

Looks promising. Does it have a built in clock?

[Superdad]

1 hour ago, Ghettocowboy23 said:

Looks promising. Does it have a built in clock?

Of course!

All digital devices have multiple clocks.  This streamer has two nice NDK NZ2520SDA XOs at audio-sample-rate related frequencies (22.792Mhz and 24.576Mhz), plus a 24.0MHz clock for its USB hub chip, plus the RPi Compute 4 module has a clock for its processor.

[dericchan1]

The big question is how it compares to its already superb predecessor Pi2aes, whether it would be a worthwhile upgrade to ditch the pi2aes for this

[Ghettocowboy23]

1 hour ago, Superdad said:

Of course!

All digital devices have multiple clocks.  This streamer has two nice NDK NZ2520SDA XOs at audio-sample-rate related frequencies (22.792Mhz and 24.576Mhz), plus a 24.0MHz clock for its USB hub chip, plus the RPi Compute 4 module has a clock for its processor.

Very nice. Thank you.  Throwing a nice linear power supply or USB-C power plug giving the user the option to use battery power then it will be a great streamer 

[dericchan1]

1 hour ago, Ghettocowboy23 said:

Very nice. Thank you.  Throwing a nice linear power supply or USB-C power plug giving the user the option to use battery power then it will be a great streamer 

The Mercury takes a 12vdc3a I believe so yes you can add a lps to the streamer. Probably won’t improve much further to the stock psu tho based on my experience using a 24v lps with the pi2aes

 

Deric

[bobfa]

The Mercury is powered by a barrel connector, No USB-C

 

[bobfa]

A short report at the end of the day.  I have done some listening to both Pi2Design devices and the Antipodes K50.  I do not currently have any high-end DACs to listen to, so I am just using the (S/PDIF) iFi xDSD Gryphon and four headphones.   As I expected, they are all some of the best digital sources I have ever had in hand.  I am not ready to pick Gold/Silver/Bronze medal winner.  I feel that I may be limited with my current test system.  I will move to the upstairs systems in a few days.

 

I am currently running Roon on the K50 and Volumio on the others.  My goal this weekend is to run the same software on all three.  LMS+

Squeezelite.  The Pi2AES is a simple SD card swap, and the K50 is a set of software switches.  I am working on other OS variants on the Mercury with a couple of hitches in my get-along.  (welcome to beta)

 

I will declare the Fourth Place contender, the Teac 501 CD Transport. I have been using CD Rips for my music, like the Loreena McKennitt shown and some streaming.

 

[bobfa]

4 hours ago, dericchan1 said:

The big question is how it compares to its already superb predecessor Pi2aes, whether it would be a worthwhile upgrade to ditch the pi2aes for this

There is no ditching the Pi2AES!  I have two of them and they stay!  

[dericchan1]

11 minutes ago, bobfa said:

There is no ditching the Pi2AES!  I have two of them and they stay!  

Thanks glad to know no urgency for me to upgrade after just owning the pi2aes for 1 year.