New streamer from Volumio coming soon.

[richie60]

New streamer coming from Volumio, the Rivo.
 

 

https://volumio.com/en/rivo/

[botrytis]

Similar to an Android Pi in power....

[feelingears]

I see there isn't much mention of the Volumio Rivo here at AS so I thought I'd put in a good word for them. I picked one of these up this fall (2022) because I like the emphasis placed on a few things at the price point the Rivo comes in at around $1,000:

• "Intentional" power supply and clocking in its design
• Ability to use third party power supply (standard 5mm connector and low voltage)
• AES output for DAC
• Airplay (for iTunes since new Airplay won't work with an old Mac running iTunes instead of Apple Music)
• UPnP (for Audirvana, etc.)
• Ethernet input

My previous streamer/bridge was the Auralic Aries Femto w/ LPS. I've also used/tested lower-cost Lumin and Sonore streamers.

 

The new Rivo easily beats the Auralic for my sound quality preferences (which I'll just summarize as warmer while retaining detail). I haven't and won't write up a review because I don't have the Auralic anymore and I don't have extensive streamer experience so even as anec-data, my write up would be meaningless. I chose the Rivo because it was built with some amount of attention to power quality, and that is my #1 rule of audiophilia: Quality power uber alles. And because I would have flexibility with software beyond Volumio as noted above.

 

One quibble: the instructions for set up are somewhat somewhere on Volumio's website. I somehow lucked into setting it up correctly, and pressing the front square button has something to do with it although it's not (wasn't anyway) called out anyplace that I recall. Anyway, other settings set in Volumio and then done. Mostly very easy.

 

Note I'm not upsampling, so that's a big consideration for people. Also no interest here in Roon or Pi-devices and fussing with fiddly software and networking, but if that's your bag, go forth and fiddle! Directly or indirectly, your efforts made the Rivo possible! Other USB streamers are everywhere. I wanted AES. Price-wise, the Pro-Ject streamer was at the time the only other streamer in the $800-$1000 price range, but it's USB only. Otherwise a friend likes his quite a lot. Personally I don't find Volumio to be how I like to interact with my music at all, but he doesn't mind. Yeah, Rivo is maybe a bit overpriced but hey, that fits right in with most other things in this hobby! There are new streamers from iFi and one or two others worth considering as well.

 

With all the above features built-in, Rivo hits the sweet spot for me.

 

 

[wanta911]

On 11/29/2022 at 5:09 AM, feelingears said:

My previous streamer/bridge was the Auralic Aries Femto w/ LPS. I've also used/tested lower-cost Lumin and Sonore streamers.

 

With all the above features built-in, Rivo hits the sweet spot for me.

 

 

 

Out of curiosity I'm toying with ordering the Rivo. I currently use an 8 year old Auralic Aries Femto with LPS as you did. I have no interest in streamers with inbuilt DACs as I use Dirac Digital Room Correction via a MiniDSP DDRC-22D between the Aries and external DAC and the AES output is ideal.

 

I guess my hesitation is whether or not I will hear any difference. Can you expand any further on the difference you noticed between the two?