Pi 2 Design Mercury Streamer

[Riccitone]

Ah…well, I stand corrected. Looks great as long as any variety of these choices will work well/conveniently on a phone. 
My concern is that it would likely take me considerable dedicated time to figure out and properly implement this. Not to mention the endless problem solving that will likely be required by a non coder layman like myself. 
 

Part  of me wants to jump in, the rest of me wants to run in terror. Not saying it isn’t interesting? I might get it started this summer. It’s just that I’ve got enough on my plate and life is short!  I’ll stop now so the topic can move forward 🙏🏼

[orange5o]

Agreed. Part of the draw of the Mercury is to take the guesswork and learning curve out of it for us who don't know code. I have enough trouble keeping volumio working on a pi streamer. I just wanted to explore internal hard drive in that scenario and gain aes out.

[zackthedog]

59 minutes ago, Riccitone said:

Ah…well, I stand corrected. Looks great as long as any variety of these choices will work well/conveniently on a phone. 
My concern is that it would likely take me considerable dedicated time to figure out and properly implement this. Not to mention the endless problem solving that will likely be required by a non coder layman like myself. 
 

Part  of me wants to jump in, the rest of me wants to run in terror. Not saying it isn’t interesting? I might get it started this summer. It’s just that I’ve got enough on my plate and life is short!  I’ll stop now so the topic can move forward 🙏🏼

 

Gentooplayer is not particularly hard to figure out.  There are many options but you only need to set up a few to have an excellent UPnP/DLNA or Logitech-based renderer/server. It's not plug-and-play like Volumio, but it offers a lot more flexibility.  It takes some time to get familiar with the menus, but I for one am happy to help.  The developer also offers excellent support over on the dedicated Software thread.

 

By familiarizing yourself with GP, the Mercury can be turned into a fully-operational music server.

[Riccitone]

@zackthedog

Thank you for the encouragement to proceed, make more of an optimized effort. It’s good to know that it’s approachable and some help here would be appreciated wholeheartedly. 

[zackthedog]

16 minutes ago, Riccitone said:

@zackthedog

Thank you for the encouragement to proceed, make more of an optimized effort. It’s good to know that it’s approachable and some help here would be appreciated wholeheartedly. 

 

I'm happy to walk you through GP, it takes an hour or two but once it's done it's done.  The Mercury is an interesting beast, it has enormous potential but needs a little fussing to get it all going.

[mitch751]

Anyone installed HQ Player NAA in Mercury streamer successfully ? 

 

I have no issue to detect the NAA with RopieeeXL, however, it does not able to see standalone HQP NAA (I burnt separately to another sc card) even I can see it connecting to my home network.

[chrisd552]

I ordered a Mercury v2 but it hasn’t arrived yet. Has anyone experimented with different PSUs yet? Is SQ impacted a lot by choice of power supply?

[orange5o]

Zack, I know from the Lite thread you were getting one of those also, did you end up doing a sound comparison? Thanks!

[zackthedog]

1 hour ago, orange5o said:

Zack, I know from the Lite thread you were getting one of those also, did you end up doing a sound comparison? Thanks!

 

I did not get the Lite because Michael emailed me and said they couldn't get the right parts to use a separate 5V power supply for the hat.  It had to be 4.3 volts or something odd.  I don't know if this has changed.

[Superdad]

3 hours ago, zackthedog said:

I'm happy to walk you through GP, it takes an hour or two but once it's done it's done.  The Mercury is an interesting beast, it has enormous potential but needs a little fussing to get it all going.

Tweaked GentooPlayer has given me by far the best SQ on the Mercury—especially when the OS and apps are loaded into RAMdisk.  I just wish I knew why it takes nearly an hour for the RAMdisk loading process to complete.

 

3 hours ago, chrisd552 said:

 Has anyone experimented with different PSUs yet? Is SQ impacted a lot by choice of power supply?

 

Yes, and yes!

I’m sure you are going to enjoy your new Mercury. 

[Navin]

On 7/31/2022 at 7:34 AM, Riccitone said:

Just got my Mercury...

 

But trying I2S connection is not playing anything. I am getting the typical sign (bit rate display) screen change when I hit play to indicate that it's receiving data , just no sound.

 

Just saw this. Maybe you got it fixed but in case you didn't please check post 101 in the link below.

Pi 2 Design - How do I get started? | Page 6 | Super Best Audio Friends

 

 

 

[Riccitone]

@Navin

Yeah, already went back and forth with Michael and Topping about I2s compatibility. Unfortunately, none of  the pinout options for the D70s are compatible (regardless of the settings). I was told to either use any of the other digital connections or get a different dac. Someone else on a similar thread at SBAF actually built a cable with a custom pinout connector to make the Mercury compatible with the D70s. Don’t really want to go that far.
 

If I’d known it would not have worked, I might have waited for the version 2 of the Mercury. But overall not a dealbreaker. Sounds SO good as is through coax that I’m not at all bothered by it. I’ll just wait until I upgrade my dac and make sure it will work with the next one. 
 

Regardless, very kind of you to reach out and help! I appreciate it. Really good to have a community like this to get the best out of our experience and share ideas 🙏🏼😊
 

 

[chrisd552]

46 minutes ago, Riccitone said:

@Navin

Yeah, already went back and forth with Michael and Topping about I2s compatibility. Unfortunately, none of  the pinout options for the D70s are compatible (regardless of the settings). I was told to either use any of the other digital connections or get a different dac. Someone else on a similar thread at SBAF actually built a cable with a custom pinout connector to make the Mercury compatible with the D70s. Don’t really want to go that far.
 

If I’d known it would not have worked, I might have waited for the version 2 of the Mercury. But overall not a dealbreaker. Sounds SO good as is through coax that I’m not at all bothered by it. I’ll just wait until I upgrade my dac and make sure it will work with the next one. 
 

Regardless, very kind of you to reach out and help! I appreciate it. Really good to have a community like this to get the best out of our experience and share ideas 🙏🏼😊
 

 

I think you can wire it without much trouble at all. Its 4 pins I think. And a common problem is there is no cabling standard for I2S (I think the Mercury uses the PS Audio mapping). :)

[Navin]

13 hours ago, Riccitone said:

@Navin

Regardless, very kind of you to reach out and help! I appreciate it. Really good to have a community like this to get the best out of our experience and share ideas 🙏🏼😊
 

Hmm... so the Pi2AES board is compatible with the D70s but the Version 1 of the Mercury Streamer is not natively compatible (requires a specially configured cable)?

 

 

[Navin]

12 hours ago, chrisd552 said:

I think you can wire it without much trouble at all. Its 4 pins I think. And a common problem is there is no cabling standard for I2S (I think the Mercury uses the PS Audio mapping). :)

I think Holo, Gustard and PS Audio use the same mapping and hence the Mercury V1 is natively compatible with those that adhere to this layout. 

 

The Pi2AES board however does not suffer so. 

[Powerman]

So help me out guys, I just figured out my speakers are out of phase. Hell, accidentally. So mercury going to Pontus 2 through I2S. I went through every setting on Pontus for I2S... A couple times... Nothing changes phase. L and R channel change... But I can't change phase.

 

Is there a way to change phase in mercury? Right now I am still using Volumio but have used GP, Audirvana, and Lumin. Right now all my cables are right, I just have to swap polarity on a sspeaker.

 

What else could be causing?

[Navin]

On 2/20/2022 at 10:14 AM, bobfa said:

The Pi2AES is a simple SD card swap, and the K50 is a set of software switches.

Just saw this thread. I am a bit confused. Do you mean the Mercury?  From what I understand the Pi2AES is a transport card designed for the Raspberry Pi. 

 

On 1/13/2022 at 11:13 PM, chauphuong said:

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.

As per what I remember, Allo had stated that there should be no advantage in using CM4 over the CM3+ version used in the USBridge Signature. 

 

At least when used with the RPi4, the CM4 equipped RPi4 has higher power consumption and slightly noisier than a CM3+ equipped RPi3B+ (via USB output).  The stock USBridge Signature works at 384Khz on i2s and DSD 512 via USB. 

[zackthedog]

7 hours ago, Powerman said:

So help me out guys, I just figured out my speakers are out of phase. Hell, accidentally. So mercury going to Pontus 2 through I2S. I went through every setting on Pontus for I2S... A couple times... Nothing changes phase. L and R channel change... But I can't change phase.

 

Is there a way to change phase in mercury? Right now I am still using Volumio but have used GP, Audirvana, and Lumin. Right now all my cables are right, I just have to swap polarity on a sspeaker.

 

What else could be causing?

 

How do you know your speakers are out of phase?  Are they self-powered?

[chauphuong]

4 hours ago, Navin said:

Just saw this thread. I am a bit confused. Do you mean the Mercury?  From what I understand the Pi2AES is a transport card designed for the Raspberry Pi. 

 

As per what I remember, Allo had stated that there should be no advantage in using CM4 over the CM3+ version used in the USBridge Signature. 

 

At least when used with the RPi4, the CM4 equipped RPi4 has higher power consumption and slightly noisier than a CM3+ equipped RPi3B+ (via USB output).  The stock USBridge Signature works at 384Khz on i2s and DSD 512 via USB. 

Please don't quote me out of the context.

[Powerman]

1 hour ago, zackthedog said:

 

How do you know your speakers are out of phase?  Are they self-powered?

Phase test. I've been measuring with REW and getting conflicting stuff. But just accidentally played speaker test tracks and in-phase out of phase is clear as day. Confirmed with REW, 180 out.

 

This morning I tried to confirm I2S... Plugged in USB cable... It too is out of phase... As in I didn't need to reverse my speaker.

 

There is nothing in Volumio. Tried Fusion DSP to see if I could swap but nothing. A little baffled at this point.

[Powerman]

Well, I'm not alone... Micheal is baffled as well. Could be Pontus... Odd. Denefrips has the phase button which supposedly swaps phase... But I (and others) has never heard or measured a bit of difference with the switch.

[Powerman]

So I got my phase figured out.... Anyhoo, linear power supply. Is what Micheal supplied good enough? Little things I have my modem and Mercury. Is there a good LPS that would do both?

[Riccitone]

I could be wrong, but I thought  @Superdad was in the process of designing and building one for the Mercury. But I have the same question, really. I’ve been considering a small green computer lps myself. 

[chipvn]

On 11/17/2022 at 6:15 PM, Navin said:

As per what I remember, Allo had stated that there should be no advantage in using CM4 over the CM3+ version used in the USBridge Signature. 

 

At least when used with the RPi4, the CM4 equipped RPi4 has higher power consumption and slightly noisier than a CM3+ equipped RPi3B+ (via USB output).  The stock USBridge Signature works at 384Khz on i2s and DSD 512 via USB. 

I'm afraid that I could not agree on this assumption.

The CM4 running on USBridge Sig is obviously much more powerful than the original CM3+. With the CM3+, there is no way for me to output DSD256 with any real time kernel without static pop/click on my unit regardless of OS used. With CM4 module, I can output DSD512 with real time kernel on GentooPlayer with easy!

For the noise, I don't understand the basis to comment that the CM4 is noisier. Without any modification, the CM3 to Cm4 adaptor board use switching power IC to step up the 3.3V that feed the CM3+ to 5V that the CM4 required and thus, it might be noisier. Howerver, it is not too dificult to remove this switching stepup power IC and take directly 5V clean power from the GPIO to provide the CM4.

We can always order the CM4 without WIFI/Bluetooth/eMMC so basically there is no addtional noise generate.

There is no available option at this moment to use the built in Ethernet interface of the CM4 on the USBridge Sig. Therefore, it is still using the ASIX Ethernet to USB  chip then sharing the same USB hub using the TI chip of the USBridge Sig which is also use for USB output.

The whole CM4 modified solution still has all the advantages of the USBridge Sig but with a more powerful chip of the newer generation.

I can use either Roon Bridge or HQPlayer NAA to stream DSD512 with real time kernel on GentooPlayer64 with the CM4 running max at only 800MHz on the Allo USBridge Sig and the unit is still much cooler than the stock CM3+ that can only do DSD256 with normal kernel!

 

Back to the Pi2Design Mecury V2, it seems to be a really nice unit for those who need i2S/SPDIF interface. However, for those who just need USB output, it could be a bit overkill. A Mecury V2 light (or something similar) with just a USB interface might be a better solution for this user group.

[RichardSF]

11 hours ago, chipvn said:

Back to the Pi2Design Mecury V2, it seems to be a really nice unit for those who need i2S/SPDIF interface. However, for those who just need USB output, it could be a bit overkill. A Mecury V2 light (or something similar) with just a USB interface might be a better solution for this user group.

If you only need USB output, you only need a Raspberry Pi 3 or Pi 4, and you have many choices for kits. The Mercury was created to provide high quality i2S/SPDIF outputs. It is the only reason for the Mercury to exist.