Allo DigiOne Signature

I connected the DigiOne to a Pro-Ject Pre-Box S2 Digital and went from there to the RCA inputs of the NAC252. But the sound was unsatisfactory.
The DigiOne Signature is now connected to the enclosed power supply on the RPI side and for the clean side I use an iFi Audio ipower 5V.

Since this (NDS / 555 PS DR) is a very expensive DAC , I will deal with the Chord Qutest or the Mytek Brooklyn DAC +.

Ricardo22 posted:

I connected the DigiOne to a Pro-Ject Pre-Box S2 Digital and went from there to the RCA inputs of the NAC252. But the sound was unsatisfactory.
The DigiOne Signature is now connected to the enclosed power supply on the RPI side and for the clean side I use an iFi Audio ipower 5V.

Ricardo22 posted:

Since this (NDS / 555 PS DR) is a very expensive DAC , I will deal with the Chord Qutest or the Mytek Brooklyn DAC +.

Thanks! I am currently using an iFi Audio ipower 5V to power a DigiOne connected via DC1 BNC-BNC to a Naim DAC. The  DigiOne sound quality improves if one grounds the iFi as explained in the "SMPS and grounding" thread in the UpTone Audio subforum of the CA forums. Allo do not recommend the iFi following their measurements. If you are after the best results withe the DigiOne Signature, you could perhaps power its clean side with a battery pack, see posts above, e.g., by RX8R3ROD. Enjoy the Signature!

That’s a very interesting finding indeed — how would you describe the difference betweeen DigiOne Signature and NDS as transport?

Thanks!

Timo

P.S. And with a better power supply for the clean side, you even have some room for imporvement. 

And hard as it is to imagine, you can, at least in some systems and environments, get even more from the Signature (if it’s important to) by experimenting further with the power supplies.

Hello NBPF.

Thanks for the tip. 
I had read the posts regarding the battery supply and will test it for sure ...

Timo posted:

That’s a very interesting finding indeed — how would you describe the difference betweeen DigiOne Signature and NDS as transport?

Thanks!

 

Hello Timo.

I'm not sure if I understood you correctly?

OK, so the network cable has changed from the NDS to the DigiOne Signature. The SPDIF RCA of the Signature goes into the digital SPDIF RCA input of the NDS. The NDS is no longer a network streamer in the network, but only delivers as DAC the analog data in the NAC252.

The difference in playback quality was tremendous. Since both used the same network and even the same network cable, the differences must be elsewhere.

The sound became more open, more transparent with more pressure and accuracy in the bass range. The stage opened wider than I thought possible.

Now I want to find out if the NDS / 555PS is an incredibly good DAC and just outdated its streaming board. For this I will soon borrow the Chord Qutest from my dealer and the Mytek Brooklyn from my other dealer.

Ricardo22 posted:

Timo posted:

That’s a very interesting finding indeed — how would you describe the difference betweeen DigiOne Signature and NDS as transport?

Thanks!

 

Hello Timo.

I'm not sure if I understood you correctly?

OK, so the network cable has changed from the NDS to the DigiOne Signature. The SPDIF RCA of the Signature goes into the digital SPDIF RCA input of the NDS. The NDS is no longer a network streamer in the network, but only delivers as DAC the analog data in the NAC252.

The difference in playback quality was tremendous. Since both used the same network and even the same network cable, the differences must be elsewhere.

The sound became more open, more transparent with more pressure and accuracy in the bass range. The stage opened wider than I thought possible.

Now I want to find out if the NDS / 555PS is an incredibly good DAC and just outdated its streaming board. For this I will soon borrow the Chord Qutest from my dealer and the Mytek Brooklyn from my other dealer.

Wow — that’s quite a finding. Thanks for elaborating Ricardo! I am considering a Chord Qutest — have just sold my ND5XS. Unfortunately, my budget doesn’t allow a Hugo TT2, let alone a Dave. But that might be feasible for a current NDS/555 owner... Enjoy exploring different DACs with your DigiOne Signature, and please keep us in the loop. 

Timo posted:

That’s a very interesting finding indeed — how would you describe the difference betweeen DigiOne Signature and NDS as transport?

I understand that RICARDO22 has used the NDS as a DAC, not as a transport. Thus he effectively has compared the DigiOne Signature to the streaming board of the NDS.

But I agree that, if confirmed, his findings would be very interesting: In https://forums.naimaudio.com/t...allo-digione-player, MM argued that the original DigiOne into NDS was not as good as the NDS alone. At the same time, he also found that the DigiOne into 272/250DR sounded better than the 272/250DR alone. If the DigiOne Signature into the NDS turns out to better the NDS alone, it suggests that the Signature is a significant improvement over the original DigiOne.

nbpf posted:

Timo posted:

That’s a very interesting finding indeed — how would you describe the difference betweeen DigiOne Signature and NDS as transport?

I understand that RICARDO22 has used the NDS as a DAC, not as a transport. Thus he effectively has compared the DigiOne Signature to the streaming board of the NDS.

But I agree that, if confirmed, his findings would be very interesting: In https://forums.naimaudio.com/t...allo-digione-player, MM argued that the original DigiOne into NDS was not as good as the NDS alone. At the same time, he also found that the DigiOne into 272/250DR sounded better than the 272/250DR alone. If the DigiOne Signature into the NDS turns out to better the NDS alone, it suggests that the Signature is a significant improvement over the original DigiOne.

NBPF, now it’s your turn — get a Signature and do some tests with your NDac...  

Though I was very pleased when I was able to sell my regular DigiOne for a good price, I have to admit I would have liked to do some experimenting too... 

Timo

I really want to go back to a Pi based streamer connected to my Chord 2Qute but it needs to be plug and play and be operational without me having to open my laptop first. If any of you Pi enthusiasts could tell me what I need to buy to achieve this I'd be extremely grateful.

Timo posted:

nbpf posted:

Timo posted:

That’s a very interesting finding indeed — how would you describe the difference betweeen DigiOne Signature and NDS as transport?

I understand that RICARDO22 has used the NDS as a DAC, not as a transport. Thus he effectively has compared the DigiOne Signature to the streaming board of the NDS.

But I agree that, if confirmed, his findings would be very interesting: In https://forums.naimaudio.com/t...allo-digione-player, MM argued that the original DigiOne into NDS was not as good as the NDS alone. At the same time, he also found that the DigiOne into 272/250DR sounded better than the 272/250DR alone. If the DigiOne Signature into the NDS turns out to better the NDS alone, it suggests that the Signature is a significant improvement over the original DigiOne.

NBPF, now it’s your turn — get a Signature and do some tests with your NDac...  

Though I was very pleased when I was able to sell my regular DigiOne for a good price, I have to admit I would have liked to do some experimenting too... 

Timo

Yes, I will most likely order a Signature and do some testing. My major concern is that I have not been able to hear very significant differences between the devices that I have tried so far: Schiit Eitr, Allo DigiOne, my trusted M2Tech hiFace Evo and a Mutec MC3+ USB. I have mostly listened to the DigiOne in the last few months. Perhaps it is time to give the Eitr and the M2Tech another try before I order the Signature.  I still have all them apart from the Mutec. I also would like to get a good basis to power all these SBCs before doing some more testing. The UpTone Audio JS-2 seems a very good proposition, albeit quite expensive. It is a bit odd that Allo have introduced the USB C connectors for the new Signature, standard 5.5 x 2.1 mm plugs would have been more convenient, in my view. Anyway, it is nice to see that Allo have further improved the DigiOne. It is really hard to beat the RPi platform in terms of flexibility, ease of use and documentation!

Bob the Builder posted:

I really want to go back to a Pi based streamer connected to my Chord 2Qute but it needs to be plug and play and be operational without me having to open my laptop first. If any of you Pi enthusiasts could tell me what I need to buy to achieve this I'd be extremely grateful.

I use my laptop to connect to the (meanwhile many) RPis in my network only for data transfer (typically when I buy or rip new albums and send the new data to the drives connected to the RPis) or for system management.

Otherwise you only need a control point like Linn Kazoo or, better, Bubble UPnP running on a mobile device. This will show you all UPnP servers and renderers in your network, among others those running on the RPi. You can then simply select a server and a renderer. I guess it should work more or less the same way if you use the RPi as a Roon endpointwith a Roon controller but I have no experience with Roon.

If you describe the difficulties that you are facing in more detail, perhaps we can try to walk you through a solution.

As NBPF said, if you could perhaps outline your IT challenges in a bit more detail someone may be able to help?

IME all it needs is to leave the computer switched on, and all is well (Roon and Roipee in my case on a Mac Pro or MacBook), but it sounds like it’s not quite worked that way for you?

Thanks RX8R3R and NBPF as soon as I get a new Pi I will let you know which problems I come up against.

As an inexpensive practice run would I be able to get a Pi 3 B+ load volumio and then connect my Chord 2Qute via usb a - usb b to the Pi?

Bob the Builder posted:

...

As an inexpensive practice run would I be able to get a Pi 3 B+ load volumio and then connect my Chord 2Qute via usb a - usb b to the Pi?

I very much think so but notice that I have no experience with Volumio, DietPi or any other audiophile Linux distribution. These distributions (and Sonore's Sonicorbiter OS, SoTM's Eunhasu, Naim's unnamed OS, etc.) typically need to be configured via a web interface and do not come with rsync which is my preferred tool for data transfer and backup. I instead use a plain Raspbian distribution with upmpdcli as a UPnP renderer. It is a small MPD front-end and works very well.

Also, notice that the USB output of a bare RPi (and, more generally, of any computer without a low-noise, dedicated USB output) will be a sub-optimal input for the 2Qute. Better results can probably be obtained by putting something like an UpTone Audio Iso Regen between the RPi and the 2Qute. Because the 2Qute has a BNC S/PDIF input, better results can probably be obtained by feeding it through an Allo DigiOne or through the new Allo DigiOne Signature.

Please someone correct me on this if I’m wrong, but I don’t see why you couldn’t. I used to run a Mac and DAC setup, and that’s basically the same as a Pi / Chord setup. I stress I haven’t tried it, though.

But as you’re no doubt aware, that’ll probably mean no fully-functional control-via-network streaming goodies like Roon or Bubble (so you have to open your computer every time), and I suspect may not sound so great as you’re sending audio to the DAC from the Pi (which generally seems to be regarded as pretty noisy and not massively audio-friendly) not the Allo hats, which appear to be designed specifically to overcome the Pi audio issues.

So I guess the question I might ask myself is whether that setup might tell me as much as I would hope?

When I first got into all of this post Mac and DAC the cost was fairly minimal.

Pi, free 14 day Roon trial, some Ethernet cable to link my computer loaded with my free Roon trial to the router (previously linked wirelessly) and the router to the Pi, my tablet or phone, and an audio hat. If you’re experimenting, something like the Hifiberry (which I started with) is a relatively low cost start point that sounds pretty good (it beat my costly CD player, anyway ????). I liked it, and the Allo Digione and Signature even more. Each is a clear step up on the previous option.

I think all-in with the Hifiberry it was less than £100 to get started, less if you go via eBay.

And even if you go through all the hats, it’s not a heap of money when you think what the power cords to power much of the equipment on this forum cost ... ????????

Hope that’s of some help?

Bob the Builder posted:

As an inexpensive practice run would I be able to get a Pi 3 B+ load volumio and then connect my Chord 2Qute via usb a - usb b to the Pi?

Shure, as a Linux System it has the necessary Driver onboard. Connected by USB, the Chord 2Qute should immediatley recognized by Roon as an external soundcard.

P.S. But, like NBPF wrote, using the poor usb output from the PI may be not the best idea. 

Thanks again I do have experience of Volumio and so will try that. 

I realise that usb out from Pi isn’t optimal but this will be an experiment and practice exercise if it goes well I’ll invest in a spdiff connection for the Pi. 

Bob’s solution will indeed work. You may get a better sound with SPDIF over USB. I am currently testing two RPi into the same DAC, one via USB, the other via SPDIF. There’s not much difference between them sound-wise, but the DAC is an old(ish) one, and may be a limiting factor - nDAC needed, methinks!

However as a proof of concept then USB will work just fine. The only advice I would give is to use a RPi rather than an RPiZero, simply because the later has only one USB port and no Ethernet (only WLAN) and hence is a right PITA to set up!

Is an Allo USBrdge going  a streamer too or do I need to connect a Pi or Laptop to it to stream Tidal etc?

I think it uses a Sparky rather than an RPI, so don’t know much about it, although I think  I read somewhere that Sparkies will run The usual set of distros.

Anyway don’t you have an 82/250 to play with?????????

Suzy Wong posted:

I think it uses a Sparky rather than an RPI, so don’t know much about it, although I think  I read somewhere that Sparkies will run The usual set of distros.

Anyway don’t you have an 82/250 to play with?????????

I certaIinly do but after a long drive up to North London and back am having some dinner and might have a go later 

I have just purchased a used Raspberry Pi 2/HifiBerry Digi + to have a play with next week it has the choice of Spdif and optical which my 2Qute has so once I get it up and running I may well have to ask some advice.

Happy experimenting! ????