Naim Uniti Core, HiFiBerry Digi+ Pro, Allo DigiOne and SPDIF DACs

I cannot comment on the HiFiBery, but I've ordered the Allo DigiOne Player which includes a RPi, a DigiOne board, a case, and very important, a low noise power supply.

I do already have the iFi 5v PS, which costs these days 60 Euro. the Allo PS can be bought for 25% of that money.

No nDac here either. I'd love to have one, but it seems to excel mainly when a super duper expensive PS is attached to that. Since my Pre-amp is not even on a proper level, I need to reserve money for that first.

Ardbeg10y posted:

I cannot comment on the HiFiBery, but I've ordered the Allo DigiOne Player which includes a RPi, a DigiOne board, a case, and very important, a low noise power supply.

I do already have the iFi 5v PS, which costs these days 60 Euro. the Allo PS can be bought for 25% of that money.

No nDac here either. I'd love to have one, but it seems to excel mainly when a super duper expensive PS is attached to that. Since my Pre-amp is not even on a proper level, I need to reserve money for that first.

Thanks for posting your finding! I have a bare Naim DAC that I have bought second hand. I think that the last firmware upgrade (Dec. 2015, if I am not mistaken) has made the Naim DAC without a 555 PS quite attractive. There are of course a number of very competent alternatives to the Naim DAC of course. Best, nbpf

The DigiOne has arrived, an sd card was setup having a fresh Raspbian installation. VNC installed, all configurations done (thanks for mentioning dtoverlay=allo-digione, nbpf) MDP was installed. But ... I forgot to get a proper coax cable ...

Any recommendation for a coax to coax cable? Normally I get the AudioQuest cables, but if there is something significantly better, I'd be interested.

Ardbeg10y posted:

The DigiOne has arrived, an sd card was setup having a fresh Raspbian installation. VNC installed, all configurations done (thanks for mentioning dtoverlay=allo-digione, nbpf) MDP was installed. But ... I forgot to get a proper coax cable ...

Any recommendation for a coax to coax cable? Normally I get the AudioQuest cables, but if there is something significantly better, I'd be interested.

I am using the same Naim DC1 that usually connects the M2Tech HiFace Evo to the Naim DAC. I have not looked into SPDIF cables recently. Before I bought the DC1 (about two years ago) I had a Mark Grant cable which seemed very good to me. Best, nbpf

I have managed to install bubleupnp on my macbook following set up instructions using terminal on mac.  If you google  'how to stream Tidal via Raspberry Pi'  an excellent guide from HIFIZINE will walk you through it all. 

I have found that occasionally  I have to restart server on the Networks tab of bubbleupnp if I haven't been using it for a while which isn't ideal of course so any help on that would be good.

I have been using the Lumin app to control Volumio from my iphone but again it isn't ideal I will try LINKSY as I've tried it on my mac and it is ok.

My next step is to run the Pi in headless mode so I do not have to have it connected to the mac and I can use the Pi's own psu for this I need an ethernet to usb adapter apparently?

I have to say that using a Pi for me is a compromise as I traded in my Naim streamer for a better Nap but I have to say so far SQ wise I'm perfectly happy and this is without a better power supply for the Pi but key to this I believe is buying best dac you can afford.

The one thing that I am finding difficult is controlling the Pi as a streamer in a way that comes close to my experience with my Naim streamer which was pretty slick and trouble free. 

Bob the Builder posted:

My next step is to run the Pi in headless mode so I do not have to have it connected to the mac and I can use the Pi's own psu for this I need an ethernet to usb adapter apparently?

 

 

Which PI do you have? I have the RPi 3, and they have several usb ports and also an ethernet port. I have various powersupplies hanging around, the IFI 5v powersupply is one, but also the Allo PS which came with my Allo Digione Streamer. Both the iFi and Allo ones are good. You can perfectly use a random phone charger, but this might cause hums / noise. A powerbank will work also nicely for a few hours.

I only use Pi's headless. The trick is to load an image on an SD card of e.g. Raspbian, and then put a file 'ssh' in the root. No fileextension. This will allow the Pi to be connected by SSH. I do have an unix background (did Oracle installs for a few years), so I have a headstart there. This could be different for the most people.

I'm not using Tidal, but Spotify. Raspotify works seamless, and I can also use volume control from my phone. Trick is to set

    mixer_type     "software" instead of

    mixer_type     "hardware"

in the file mpd.conf. Raspotify is a package to be installed on the RPi which allows the normal Spotify client to stream to is using all functions. There is a tutorial on the Spotify site.

Next to Raspotify, I use HIFI Cast to stream my music which is stored on my Synology Nas using Minimserver. This is also a flawless and seamless integration. No issues, no restarts. Just perfect.

All I miss now is to use the Naim volume control. It is digital currently on the Streamer.

When I have a decent Dac, I'll set the streamer  / dac to fixed output and will use my Naits remote control.

You are totally right on your observation that SQ is good but convenience might be a step back. Its a bit finding your own way. In my case, I like it. I'm thinking on writing software myself to control all the digital devices.

Bob the Builder posted:

The one thing that I am finding difficult is controlling the Pi as a streamer in a way that comes close to my experience with my Naim streamer which was pretty slick and trouble free. 

 

 

 

 

Have you tried Roon? Admittedly it needs a Mac/PC or dedicated hardware but for streamer control it is 10x more convenient than any app I have tried, including Naim, Lumin, Kinski, etc.

I now have a spare DigiOne because I am getting better results with Allo‘s USBridge via a cheap USB cable into my DAC. Plus I don’t have to worry about which S/PDIF cable to buy.

I am powering the USBridge and Sparky (its Rpi equivalent) separately with a pair of iFi iPower supplies. Very clean, very low noise floor.

You are absolutely right, the DAC is the key to SQ. The key to convenience in my setup is Roon.

Bob the Builder posted:

I have managed to install bubleupnp on my macbook following set up instructions using terminal on mac.  If you google  'how to stream Tidal via Raspberry Pi'  an excellent guide from HIFIZINE will walk you through it all. 

I have found that occasionally  I have to restart server on the Networks tab of bubbleupnp if I haven't been using it for a while which isn't ideal of course so any help on that would be good.

I do not know your setup and what you are trying to do but I guess you mean BubbleUPnP Server, not the Android BubbleUPnP control point and renderer app. What do you need BubbleUPnP Server for? I have one instance of BubbleUPnP Server running on a RPi wired to my router, but this is only to turn a Chromecast Audio in the kitchen into an OpenHome renderer. Both the wired RPi and the BubbleUPnP instance have been up and running since a few months, no need to restart BubbleUPnP Server here but I hardly use it anyway.

Bob the Builder posted:

I have been using the Lumin app to control Volumio from my iphone but again it isn't ideal I will try LINKSY as I've tried it on my mac and it is ok.

Linn Kinsky has been discontinued. As an alternative to the Lumin app, you can try Linn Kazoo or BubbleUPnP. The latter is only available for Android, I believe.

Bob the Builder posted:

I have to say that using a Pi for me is a compromise as I traded in my Naim streamer for a better Nap but I have to say so far SQ wise I'm perfectly happy and this is without a better power supply for the Pi but key to this I believe is buying best dac you can afford.

The one thing that I am finding difficult is controlling the Pi as a streamer in a way that comes close to my experience with my Naim streamer which was pretty slick and trouble free. 

I do not know how you use the RPi but I am actually quite happy with BubbleUPnP (Android) and Linn Kazoo (Android and iOS) as control points. I never tried the Naim app in my environment, only at my Naim dealer. What I  very much like of BubbleUPnP (Android) is the capability of opening the booklet of the currently playing album using the metadata made avialable by MinimServer.

I should perhaps point out that I am using a RPi with an Allo DigiOne hat as an integrated UPnP server and renderer: my music files are stored on a HDD connected to the RPi via USB. On the RPi I am running both MinimServer (a UPnP server) and upmpdcli (a UPnP renderer). The DigiOne is connected via BNC to a Naim DAC. Thus there is no data transfer over my LAN at replay time (apart from the controls sent to the renderer by the control point) and the control point is extremely fast and responsive. The RPi is connected to my LAN via wireless, no need for a wired connection of course.

nbpf posted:

Ardbeg10y posted:

The DigiOne has arrived, an sd card was setup having a fresh Raspbian installation. VNC installed, all configurations done (thanks for mentioning dtoverlay=allo-digione, nbpf) MDP was installed. But ... I forgot to get a proper coax cable ...

Any recommendation for a coax to coax cable? Normally I get the AudioQuest cables, but if there is something significantly better, I'd be interested.

I am using the same Naim DC1 that usually connects the M2Tech HiFace Evo to the Naim DAC. I have not looked into SPDIF cables recently. Before I bought the DC1 (about two years ago) I had a Mark Grant cable which seemed very good to me. Best, nbpf

Thanks. I found a cable which I used to connect my TV to my AV2. Using that for now. Will replace it later, when I have a better Dac.

Bob the Builder posted:

My next step is to run the Pi in headless mode so I do not have to have it connected to the mac and I can use the Pi's own psu for this I need an ethernet to usb adapter apparently?

I have actually never used an RPi in any other mode than headless and I have deselected HDMi output (adding "sudo /opt/vc/bin/tvservice --off" to /etc/rc.local) and audio from the RPi internal audio card and bluetooth (add "dtparam=audio=off" and "dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt" to /bbot/config.txt). You can find further suggestions for fine-tuning an RPi for audio playback if you google "archimago CRAAP". I do not fully understand what you want to do with the RPi, thus it is hard to say what you actually need.

Ardbeg10y posted:

nbpf posted:

Ardbeg10y posted:

The DigiOne has arrived, an sd card was setup having a fresh Raspbian installation. VNC installed, all configurations done (thanks for mentioning dtoverlay=allo-digione, nbpf) MDP was installed. But ... I forgot to get a proper coax cable ...

Any recommendation for a coax to coax cable? Normally I get the AudioQuest cables, but if there is something significantly better, I'd be interested.

I am using the same Naim DC1 that usually connects the M2Tech HiFace Evo to the Naim DAC. I have not looked into SPDIF cables recently. Before I bought the DC1 (about two years ago) I had a Mark Grant cable which seemed very good to me. Best, nbpf

Thanks. I found a cable which I used to connect my TV to my AV2. Using that for now. Will replace it later, when I have a better Dac.

Makes sense, just make sure that it is a 75Ohm cable.

I had a fresh install of Raspbian on my RPi. Raspotify worked, MPD worked. I was able to use the DigiOne.

I could not get upmpdcli to work, and therefore streaming my hi-res files from the NAS in a convenient way was quite problematic.

During the install of upmpdcli, it was complaining about non installable libaries. The issue was that I had the latest version of Raspbian: stretch. I flashed the sd card again with a recent version of Raspbian Jessie and all was up and running in an hour or so.

+ the search for a Dac should start soon.

Ardbeg10y posted:

...

I could not get upmpdcli to work, and therefore streaming my hi-res files from the NAS in a convenient way was quite problematic.

During the install of upmpdcli, it was complaining about non installable libaries. The issue was that I had the latest version of Raspbian: stretch. I flashed the sd card again with a recent version of Raspbian Jessie and all was up and running in an hour or so.

This is a bit strange, I have installed upmpdcli on Raspbian stretch with no issues. In /etc/apt/sources.list.d I have two files:

raspi.list

upmpdcli.list

Ardbeg10y posted:

+ the search for a Dac should start soon.

Great! I am very happy with my second hand Naim DAC. At the moment, I have 4 sources connected to it: one optical (a TV) and three electrical (blu-ray player, DigiOne and M2Tech HiFace Evo). There are many very good DACs out there but the old nDAC is hard to beat when it comes to connectivity! Have fun with your search. Best, nbpf

nbpf posted:

Ardbeg10y posted:

...

I could not get upmpdcli to work, and therefore streaming my hi-res files from the NAS in a convenient way was quite problematic.

During the install of upmpdcli, it was complaining about non installable libaries. The issue was that I had the latest version of Raspbian: stretch. I flashed the sd card again with a recent version of Raspbian Jessie and all was up and running in an hour or so.

This is a bit strange, I have installed upmpdcli on Raspbian stretch with no issues. In /etc/apt/sources.list.d I have two files:

raspi.list

upmpdcli.list

Sorry, I have somehow managed to omit the content of the two files in my post. These are

  deb http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian/ stretch main ui

and

  deb http://www.lesbonscomptes.com/...ds/raspbian-stretch/ stretch main
  deb-src http://www.lesbonscomptes.com/...ads/raspbian-jessie/ unstable main

respectively. I think you need these repositories for upmpdcli to install in Raspbian stretch. Best, nbpf

nbpf posted:

Bob the Builder posted:

My next step is to run the Pi in headless mode so I do not have to have it connected to the mac and I can use the Pi's own psu for this I need an ethernet to usb adapter apparently?

I have actually never used an RPi in any other mode than headless and I have deselected HDMi output (adding "sudo /opt/vc/bin/tvservice --off" to /etc/rc.local) and audio from the RPi internal audio card and bluetooth (add "dtparam=audio=off" and "dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt" to /bbot/config.txt). You can find further suggestions for fine-tuning an RPi for audio playback if you google "archimago CRAAP". I do not fully understand what you want to do with the RPi, thus it is hard to say what you actually need.

Hi nbpf

I'm a total newbie to the world of RPi and have no clue at what I'm doing how I've managed to get any noise from it is a mystery so please forgive my ignorance and any help would be greatfully recieved as my partner is very unhappy that she can no longer open an app on her phone and play music. So please help and extract me from the doghouse what I wish to achieve is to use my Pi as a standalone streamer that I can control via an iPhone/iPad app without having to have it connected to my laptop ethernet wired connection to my BT hub is fine.

What you have written above is double dutch to me nbpf when I had to upload bubbleupnp to my macbook I didn't even know what terminal was and had to look it up!

 

There are many very good DACs out there but the old nDAC is hard to beat when it comes to connectivity!... 

... and to SQ, especially with 4.11.8.

Chag -

I like the nDac too, there are some pros and some cons - as usual for any product.

Pro:

It is Naim, therefore likely to adhere to the company philosophy and vision (strange word here, 'vision') on sound.

It has Din connectors. I'm a huge fan of this because it takes care of many things. I got to understand the importance of this when I tried to integrate a Turntable in my setup.

It has many ports for Dac standards.

It is solid, my Kids won't break it.

It has a very decent price if bought second hand.

Cons:

It is another serious box. Since it is going to be part of my Active setup, I have already quite some boxes.

I will be tempted all the time to add a super expensive 555PS power supply.

Bob the Builder posted:

nbpf posted:

Bob the Builder posted:

My next step is to run the Pi in headless mode so I do not have to have it connected to the mac and I can use the Pi's own psu for this I need an ethernet to usb adapter apparently?

I have actually never used an RPi in any other mode than headless and I have deselected HDMi output (adding "sudo /opt/vc/bin/tvservice --off" to /etc/rc.local) and audio from the RPi internal audio card and bluetooth (add "dtparam=audio=off" and "dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt" to /bbot/config.txt). You can find further suggestions for fine-tuning an RPi for audio playback if you google "archimago CRAAP". I do not fully understand what you want to do with the RPi, thus it is hard to say what you actually need.

Hi nbpf

I'm a total newbie to the world of RPi and have no clue at what I'm doing how I've managed to get any noise from it is a mystery so please forgive my ignorance and any help would be greatfully recieved as my partner is very unhappy that she can no longer open an app on her phone and play music. So please help and extract me from the doghouse what I wish to achieve is to use my Pi as a standalone streamer that I can control via an iPhone/iPad app without having to have it connected to my laptop ethernet wired connection to my BT hub is fine.

What you have written above is double dutch to me nbpf when I had to upload bubbleupnp to my macbook I didn't even know what terminal was and had to look it up!

@Bob: How are you getting on? Have you tried Linn Kazoo yet as a control point? You should get reasonable results using that and Bubbleunp. The instructions you found on Hifizine are very comprehensive.

On the other hand, if you have a birthday coming up, you could spoil yourself with a dedicated music server, which would allow you to switch off your MacBook. I recently took the plunge with a sonicTransporter from Small Green Computer company. Mine has an internal disk but with the base model you just need to plug in an external hard drive containing your music files. With that and your Rpi (suitably configured) on the same network you no longer need your MacBook to be connected. It ships with a 60-day Roon license which is your get-out-of-doghouse-free card with a slick app and integrated TIDAL streaming.

P.S. You can find lots of useful info and help on Rpi streaming at the Roon Community site by entering beginners in the search box.

Good suggestion from William.

It the sonicTransporter is too expensive, you can also buy a ChromeCast Audio + spdif optical cable an run this into your Dac.

Spotify and Tidal supports that and it will be a massive increase in convenience, and a slight decrease in SQ.

However I don't know your wife, I think she will be happy again.

Ardbeg10y posted:

I like the nDac too, there are some pros and some cons - as usual for any product.

Pro:

It is Naim, therefore likely to adhere to the company philosophy and vision (strange word here, 'vision') on sound.

It has Din connectors. I'm a huge fan of this because it takes care of many things. I got to understand the importance of this when I tried to integrate a Turntable in my setup.

It has many ports for Dac standards.

It is solid, my Kids won't break it.

It has a very decent price if bought second hand.

Cons:

It is another serious box. Since it is going to be part of my Active setup, I have already quite some boxes.

I will be tempted all the time to add a super expensive 555PS power supply.

The DAC V1 also has an SPDIF input. And there are some other DACs with SPDIF inputs notably the Chord range, that many who have compared with the Naim DACs prefer (my assessment being a greater 'naturalness' of the sound, others describing as more organic or analog-like). The lower priced Chords have less choice of inputs than the n-DAC, though that is only significant if you have multiple digital sources.

One thing of which to be wary is that different DACs can vary in their sensitivity to both jitter and RF in the rendered digital stream (e,g unlike their more senior siblings, Mojo and Hugo are particularly sensitive to RF, which has an adverse effect on sound quality, though not so much to jitter because they reclock). This will have a bearing on the sound quality of the source-DAC combination, so as part of the discussion, as well as learning what people may have done to address these causes of degradation especially in respect of the non-hifi-box souces, it will be interesting to learn how the different sources compare into a range of different DACs, though I suspect few will have been in a position to do that

Bob the Builder posted:

nbpf posted:

Bob the Builder posted:

My next step is to run the Pi in headless mode so I do not have to have it connected to the mac and I can use the Pi's own psu for this I need an ethernet to usb adapter apparently?

I have actually never used an RPi in any other mode than headless and I have deselected HDMi output (adding "sudo /opt/vc/bin/tvservice --off" to /etc/rc.local) and audio from the RPi internal audio card and bluetooth (add "dtparam=audio=off" and "dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt" to /bbot/config.txt). You can find further suggestions for fine-tuning an RPi for audio playback if you google "archimago CRAAP". I do not fully understand what you want to do with the RPi, thus it is hard to say what you actually need.

Hi nbpf

I'm a total newbie to the world of RPi and have no clue at what I'm doing how I've managed to get any noise from it is a mystery so please forgive my ignorance and any help would be greatfully recieved as my partner is very unhappy that she can no longer open an app on her phone and play music. So please help and extract me from the doghouse what I wish to achieve is to use my Pi as a standalone streamer that I can control via an iPhone/iPad app without having to have it connected to my laptop ethernet wired connection to my BT hub is fine.

What you have written above is double dutch to me nbpf when I had to upload bubbleupnp to my macbook I didn't even know what terminal was and had to look it up!

I still do not full yunderstand how you want to deploy your RPi. Do you have a DAC with SPDIF inputs? Electrical? optical? both? Do you have a USB DAC? How is your RPi connected to your DAC? What OS have you installed or want to install on the RPi? Raspbian, Volumio, DietPi or others? I cannot provide detailed installation and setup instruction in this forum but if I understand what you want to do precisely I migh be able to point you to pertinent resources. There are very good and detailed tutorials for virtually every task. If you have a UPnP server in your LAN and you want to use the RPi as a LAN to USB bridge for a USB DAC, all you need to do is to install upmpdcli. The upmpdcli web site contains detailed installations and setup instructions. This will also give you access to Tidal, Qobuz and GoogleMusic. Please, see also the very good recommendations by  William and Ardbeg10y above!

[@mention:55771800629066628]: have you mangaged to install upmpdcli under Raspbian stretch? I have tried to post the repositories that needs to be included by sources.list (the content of the files raspi.list and upmpdcli.list mentioned above) but my post was moderated. I guess that we are not allowed to post names of repositories in this forum, I'll have to double check. Anyway, the upmpdcli repositories for Raspbian stretch are listed on the upmpdcli web page in the downloads section and the installation worked flawlessly for me. Best, nbpf