Allo Digione player

Posted by: MangoMonkey on 24 April 2018

Received this earlier today. Shipped straight from India via Fedex for $200 including shipping.

Playing ROON with files fed from my PC via the ALLO into the Dac section of the NDS - and can't find anything to complain about - a bargain indeed.

Unfortunately, it's not quite at par with the streaming section in the NDS, but I can't complain. It's using a $10 wall wart - an iFi or a linear PSU might make things better - I'll try that if I think I want to run ROON long term.

Listening to ROON (on the allo which feeds spdif via BNC into the NDS with flac files on my PC) and if I had no comparison, there's  nothing to complain about. The same music from uniticore via upnp into the NDS sounds a little better - or maybe just different - and the difference could very well be attributable to different ethernet cables. Maybe a linear PSU or the iFi would make the unit sound better - but the value prop is shocking. 

Posted on: 09 May 2018 by nbpf

In case you are interested in a comparison between the Allo DigiOne and the Schiit Eitr: I am now running them in parallel from the same Raspberry Pi 3B+. They are connected to inputs 1 and 2 of the Naim DAC via two identical DC1 cables. I'll do some more listening and then report. Best, nbpf

Posted on: 23 May 2018 by nbpf

For those powering the DigiOne with a 5V ifi iPower: I could obtain a perceivable improvement in sound quality by grounding the ifi as explained in the first post of the "SMPS and grounding" thread in the CA Forum by John Swenson.

Posted on: 24 May 2018 by michael1702
nbpf posted:
MangoMonkey posted:

I should be able to slot in a Naim Dac into my system later this week. I'll report back.

Any news?

I have meanwhile moved the DigiOne to a Raspberry Pi 3B+. The nice thing is that it now connects to the 5GHz wireless band with 121/135 Mbit/s (as reported by the router) which is much better than what the Pi 3B could achieve in the 2.4GHz band. Wireless Qobuz streaming to the Pi 3B+ works flawlessly just as before. The CPU of the Pi 3B+ can be clocked up to 1.4GHz but I have disabled CPU frequency scaling and set the frequency to 1GHz constant.

Hi, how are you streaming Qobuz to the Pi? 

Posted on: 24 May 2018 by nbpf
michael1702 posted:
nbpf posted:
MangoMonkey posted:

I should be able to slot in a Naim Dac into my system later this week. I'll report back.

Any news?

I have meanwhile moved the DigiOne to a Raspberry Pi 3B+. The nice thing is that it now connects to the 5GHz wireless band with 121/135 Mbit/s (as reported by the router) which is much better than what the Pi 3B could achieve in the 2.4GHz band. Wireless Qobuz streaming to the Pi 3B+ works flawlessly just as before. The CPU of the Pi 3B+ can be clocked up to 1.4GHz but I have disabled CPU frequency scaling and set the frequency to 1GHz constant.

Hi, how are you streaming Qobuz to the Pi? 

Either via the Qobuz interface of upmpdcli (the UPnP renderer that I run on the Pi) or via the Qobuz interface made available by BubbleUPnP, the control point that I run on my Android mobile phone. I understand that one can also stream Qobuz via a BubbleUPnP server running on a networked machine but I have never tried this approach.

Posted on: 24 May 2018 by michael1702

Thanks! Upgraded DietPi, installed gmrender and it works great with Linn Kazoo via BubbleUPnP on DiskStation. Qobuz App on Mac shows DietPi but throws error. Can't have it all. ;-)

Posted on: 26 May 2018 by Ardbeg10y
nbpf posted:

For those powering the DigiOne with a 5V ifi iPower: I could obtain a perceivable improvement in sound quality by grounding the ifi as explained in the first post of the "SMPS and grounding" thread in the CA Forum by John Swenson.

Thanks. I have that ps currently in use having no improvement and indeed - there is some ripple when I open the volume completely on the amp. Must be some earthing issue which possibly gets solved by this fix.

Posted on: 04 June 2018 by nbpf

According to Allo, they are "working hard to release the best SMPS on the market" for the DigiOne this summer.