Happy Camper with a Raspberry Pi

  1. Music files are FLACs stored on Synology NAS, connected via Netgear router using El Cheapo brand Cat5e. No Ciscos, EE8s or Etherwotsits,
  2. Streamer hardware is Allo USBridge Signature, DigiOne Signature, Shanti PSU - around £650 all in.
  3. Streamer software is MoOde Audio, upsampling to 24/176.4 - donationware, but it works!
  4. S/PDIF via Naim DC-1 BNC coax to nDAC-XPS, thence to 82 & active SBLs
  5. Control via webpage from PC, iOS, Android etc. No difficulty, no fuss.

Sounds excellent, and even has Naim Radio, although the FLAC streams have no track metadata (dunno whether it’s an issue with FLAC streams in general or MoOde in particular; however an update to latter due in the next couple of weeks…)
And with 2500 ish albums, I can’t be bothered with Spotify, Tidal, etc.

Other systems in the homestead use RPi3/various HATs/MoOde. Even they sound pretty good.

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RPi3 with HiFiBerry DAC 2 HD hat running RoPieee as a Roon endpoint here. Works like a charm and sounds a lot better than it should considering the price. I sometimes think about getting a ”proper” streamer, but then again I probably should spend about 10 times the cost of RPi and DAC 2 to get a significant upgrade in SQ.

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The Allo USBridge Signature does look very good…have you had chance to compare the USB output v the SPDIF? Guess you would need another DAC for the USB input. Nice setup.

No, haven’t done the comparison. I do have a DAC with a USB and SPDIF inputs, namely a Musical Fidelity V-DAC2/V-PSU. Sound quality wise, it is not in the same league as the nDAC/XPS.

So the next question would be, why buy the £250 USBSig when not using the USB output and a £30 RPi would do the job? Well, my entry into streaming was an RPi3/IQAudio Digi/wall wart PSU driving the V-DAC. Sounded pretty good.

I then acquired the nDAC (with Olive XPS borrowed from my CDX). This provided a massive uplift in SQ as would be expected.And so it should for the cost!

The IQAudio Digi+ was changed for the Allo DigiOneSig, which improved things again (and yes, I know this cannot be as bitz is bitz and do not have a sound :stuck_out_tongue: ).

Next upgrade was in the PSU area with firstly a Cuinas Audio supercapacitor job, followed by Allo’s Shanti. Both made a very significant (and similar) difference compared to the wallwart PSU, shown to be easily repeatable. by swapping PSUs

So the final test was to replace the RPi3 board with the USBridgeSig, knowing that the latter was aimed at high quality USB output rather than as a motherboard for the DigiOneSig. So I wasn’t expecting a great uplift in SQ and so it proved.

But the metal case is much nicer than the acrylic job I had been using for the RPi/DigiOneSig! :laughing:

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I do not know which UPnP client Moode uses but upmpdcli (https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/upmpdcli/, supported by standard Raspbian but also by GenTooPlayer and many other “audiophile” distributions) is an OpenHome renderer and thus you do not need to additionally run BubbleUPnP Server to “see” it in Linn Kazoo or in the Lumin app.

By the way, if you have an Android mobile device, try BubbleUPnP (the Android app, not the Server). It is much faster and more reliable than Linn Kazoo and also more powerful.

My renderer is by the way also a DigiOne Signature hosted by an RPi 3 running upmpdcli and MinimServer 2. I have another RPi (4, this time) wired to the router and also running an instance of MinimServer 2.

Most of the time I stream from the MinimServer instance that runs on the RPi 3 that hosts the DigiOne Signature without sending data over the LAN.

Streaming from the RPi 4 also works fine over the wireless and up to 24/192.

But a single RPi running only upmpdcli and MinimServer and hosting a DigiOne Signature is the simplest and most straightforward solution and sounds very good indeed.

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Are you still using the nDac, nbpf?

I still need to minimize the running processes on my rPi, but it works nice and fast - I’m not really in a hurry to fix it.

I recently discovered Kodi too, which I run on the macs around so that they can act as renderers. Did not try it yet on a pi though.

Thanks for the update!

Yes, I am still using the old nDAC. The last gear I bought was, if I am not mistaken, a CHC distribution block. It was quite some time ago!

The nDAC is still withouth an external PSU and I am still powering the DigiOne Signature with an LPS-1.2 (clean side) and with a JS-2 (dirty side). The other way round might be slightly better but I haven’t really done careful comparisons.

I would not mind buying some new gear but, to tell you the truth, I haven’t seen anything really exciting coming up in the last 2 years.

What I really would be interested in, is a single box DAC with, say, 1 or 2 TB of on-board memory and support for internet streaming services, internet radio, Airplay, Chromecast, etc.

Until something like that comes out (or my nDAC has a failure), I’ll likely stay with the nDAC + DigiOne combo.

Best, nbpf

interesting,

I can see upmpdcli actually running on my RPi at the moment so MoOde definitely uses it. I think their implementation of Tidal was just using a global token which obviously kept getting revoked.

I might get another micro Sd card and have a play with GenTooPlayer and MinimServer look very interesting. Discovering these things is often the biggest challenge.

We don’t have any android devices here - too much Apple stuff to go down that road now. But yeah Linn Kazoo doesn’t even work on iOS for my setup bu Luminary’s does. Currently using Linn Kazoo on the Mac and it’s ok.

It looks like Kazoo is a mono app and uses (as far as I can tell) the OpenHome (https://github.com/openhome) api which is Mono too. Not very experienced with any of that.

I’m thinking it might be fun to start a Mac/iOS/AppleTV project using the new SwiftUI framework to implement something. Need to do a bit of research to find out about all the protocols though so it will take a while…

Used to run an old MacbookPro as streaming source but now I’ve got a RPi3 running Volumio into a Lindy DAC into my 32.5/HiCap/250/SBL’s reading from a WD NAS drive (also got a CDX and LP12) - sounds good to me! Controlled by the iOS Volumio App. Also got an original RPi Model B pushing electrical usage data from an old Current Cost dumb meter to PVOutput, and a RPi4 running Astroberry in my observatory! Great nerdy fun!

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Wouldn’t that be a Naim ND5 XS2?

Matrix Element X almost fills that bill, just lacks Chromecast.

Yes, the ND5XS2 (and the NDX2, ND555) would be perfect if it had 1 or 2 TB onboard memory and a good UPnP server. Unfortunately, no onboard memory and the Naim UPnP server is almost unusable for classical music.

Hi Jack,
I have a USBridge Sig plus Digione Sig on top.
They are of similar quality and I would say which would work out best would depend on the respective power supplies, cables and DAC inputs.

I’m currently favouring the USB because it’s one power supply less and better suits my downstream components.

Thanks for info…I seems like Allo put a lot of effort into both those products. I guess the other benefit with USB is that you are not restricted with sampling as you might be with SPDIF although I notice suzywong saying that upsampling to 176.4 works ok with the SPDIF setup.

Is it the same case for both products or is different depending on what you want to use it for?

The SPDIF interface itself is 192 max. USB on the Allo goes up to 768, although it may be limited if the DAC doesn’t accept such a high rate.

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Same here RPi Allo Digione and Cambridge DACMagic and Mconnect doing Tidal for me via UpNP, sounds better than it should for that sort of money. Im a vinyl guy generally but Tidal has curated me a fine Jazz playlist for the end of the week.

Just finished it all so posting a quick pic!
RPi with Argon Case and SSD
Naim App
Desktop of the RPI as viewed through VNC on my phone!

A week ago I was browsing Amazon for NAS drives and now have a fully functional NAS and computer running fanless in a corner of my living room, for a fraction of the price.



Feeling happy and also realised I don’t have as many CD’S as I thought:-)

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Similar to my NAS, a RaspberryPi 4 in a standard RPi case running AssetUPNP with a 1TB USB drive attached. No GUI running on it and a bare bones RaspberryPi OS with most services removed and no logging. Works great, it’s silent and tucked away out of sight. I transfer files to it via sftp from my Windows laptop.

Aurender A10 does all this.

Description

High-Res Music Player/Server and 32-Bit/768kHz DAC Plays Up to 2x DSD and TIDAL Masters With Wowing Dynamics: Aurender A10 Features Full Decoder MQA DAC, Cache Playback, Analog Outputs

Designed for music lovers seeking to augment their CD players, and enhanced with a built-in Full Decoder MQA DAC able to play back and display information from TIDAL Masters files, the Aurender A10 high-resolution music server/DAC creates new worlds of sound via its flagship 32-bit/768kHz dual-mono DACs and expands existing sonic vistas by using a 4TB internal hard-disk drive to store your collection. Also featuring a 120GB solid-state drive for transparent cache playback and analog outputs, A10 supports TIDAL Masters streaming, plays up to 2x DSD and 32-bit/768kHz, includes the award-winning Aurender Conductor app, and touts a dedicated, fully shielded USB 2.0 output for noise-free signal performance. Inside, A10 claims a linear power block, four individual toroidal power transformers, and asynchronous USB audio block to ensure outrageously lifelike musical reproduction marked by grand dynamics, stellar textures, and involving emotionalism. Not enough? An FPGA-based precision clock generator system delivers world-class jitter reduction. Simply sending a support request via Conductor alerts an engineer to your problem for a quick, easy fix. A10 is built to intuitively set up with your system and integrates with your iPad to give you full-function control complete with artwork, song titles, and everything you want to manage your library. Of course, The Absolute Sound Editors’ Choice Award-winning A10 serves as it’s own DAC so you won’t need to get another box.

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I have a Rpi 3 with allo digione hat and have tried it with various streaming applications, it is currently set up as a Logitech squeezebox and server, it works, and yet I don’t use it much, probably because of the user interface.

As many of you seem to be very happy with this little computer for streaming can you tell me how you use it, which app do you use?