Allo Sparky - Piano 2.1

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kane

kane

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Greetings everyone :

Since i heard a few reviews about the Allo PIANO 2.1 HI-FI DAC i decide to try it out.

I got myself the Vana Player from allo.com

Buying Experience : Staright forward and shipping to me reached in 3days. ( it was shipped from their Bangalore Office.) total cost around 10k

Packaging : Rock solid with all round good packing

Contents :
  1. Sparky
  2. Kali
  3. Piano 2.1
  4. Volt
  5. CM
  6. 5V Adapter
  7. Acrylic Case - Not really a case just bottom board and a smaller top board
  8. Risers, bolts
  9. Wifi Usb Dongle - Since the Sparky does not have any Wifi inbuilt- still a pain factors during configuration
  10. 8GB SD card with Ubunto for Allo

First combo test : Only Sparky and the Piano 2.1

Got the packaging out and began assembly, took 10 minutes to get the Sparky and the Piano connected. Inserted the Card , connected it to my TV via HDMI , attached a USB dongle for a Android keypad/trackpad. and powered it on via the given 5 volt power supply. A USb portable drive with music was attached to the USB 3 port. No separate power is required for the Piano 2.1, it draws power from the Sparky

The Screen came to life and i had a sigh of relief. Ubunto was up and running.

The Niggles mostly with the WIFI Stick

Wifi was not running though, neither was the device showing.

Ran the hardware tab and it was building a driver list, it then showed a wireless card and auto enabled it. The menu bar on top of screen then showed the wireless ICON. connected to my wifi network and it said i had updates did the update and it rebooted. Now wireless was gone again.. Connected to a Lan via network cable and mysteriously the wireless lan showed up again.

Now decided to play Music : Did the whole max2play setup etc. and tried to play a file and nothing.
Something decided to go corrupt and my screen froze.

Re-downloaded a new image from their site : Vana Max2Play Image v1.3 (Sparky)

installed it on a new SD card with the help of Win32DiskImager on a win 10 machine ( i had whole lot of trouble creating the bootable image on my mac)

Booted the new SD card and same wifi problems as before and same fix as before.
Configured the max2 play and the squeeze box server. Set the Plugequal in the advanced settings as the dac in the Squeezelite.

Then Played a flac song and voila music :clapping:


The sound was not that great, went back to the advance setting in the audioplayer tab and there was a Default plughw:CARD=PianoDACPlus. Saved and restarted. the sound was much better now. There is a marked improvement over my android tv box outputting digital to the Marantz PM6006. the sound is more natural sounding.

Next trial is with Volumio on the same setup .

Second Combo test will be with : Sparky , Kali and the Piano 2.1, I just wanted to see how much each of this makes a difference.

Do note, I have removed the Keyboard and the HDMI as all settings can be configured via the webpage

Pictures of the setup :

This is with a HD kept on top of the DIY console



The RC out connected via amazo basics 2RCA



The supplied WIFI dongle connected


On top of the Marantz PM6006



Do post comments if you have a similar setup and if i need do anything more.
 
Even I have downloaded and the SD card is ready will pop-up either today or tomorrow and check out my open baffles paired with a Jamo sub :)
 
Hi,

I am reading a lot of reviews about Allo Boss/Vana player. I am just curious as to how good the dac or Vana player is as compared to what I have currently,the Meridian Explorer or maybe the Dragonfly or maybe anything else which you have tested with.

Thanks!
 
arkaonelovemanu said:
Hi,

I am reading a lot of reviews about Allo Boss/Vana player. I am just curious as to how good the dac or Vana player is as compared to what I have currently,the Meridian Explorer or maybe the Dragonfly or maybe anything else which you have tested with.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

not really sure as i have not used either.

what i can say though is that, compared to connecting an optical in to the Marantz SR 6006 or the PM 6006 this sounds better. besides those are USB dacs, and this is a Mini Computer with a dac, so it stores my Music etc as well.
 
First combo test : Only Sparky and the Piano 2.1 With Volumio

Since i tested the Max2play with the squeeze box i wanted to try out Volumio as well.

Dowloaded the same from Volumio The Image was for Sparky since i have the Sparky Board and not the Raspberry PI

So same setup as before : Sparky and the Piano connected. Inserted the Card SD card with volumio Image , USB Wireless Lan attached, connected it to my Local Lan and powered it on via the given 5 volt power supply. A USb portable drive with music was attached to the USB 3 port. No separate power is required for the Piano 2.1, it draws power from the Sparky


Did a network scan and found the Ip address ( I use angry Ip Scanner on the Mac) : it will show up as Volumio.local there is also a hot spot it created if you do not connect the lan ( i tried that as well just to see what happens if i had no lan cable) and it showed up as a new wireless network.

pkQPxJ.png


Connected to my wireless network

w7TBTF.png



So in short the wireless drivers it picked it correctly in the volumio build.

Went through the configuring of the card and it showed the same as Piano 2.1 dac. and i could setup the DSP options as 2.0 or 2.1 or 2.2



ET9Q3k.png


I set it up as 2.1 Did a reboot ( it reboots whenever you make a change to the dac configuration.

Since the portable drive was connected to the Sparky i could begin playing my music. I have a demo track list in Flac which i have been using to test so that i can hear the same song and compare.

The sound was clear but was missing all the bass. It looked like all the lower frequency had disappeared. then realized i set up the DSP as 2.1 ( My bad since i just went with the name of the DAC :D )

egQQrc.png


Setup the same to 2.0 and rebooted Volumio again.

Acid test : Played the file again.

:clapping: And the Sound was good all the low frequencies which had died out earlier were back. and it was Sounding sweeter than what Max2play did.

There was a big Improvement and suddenly each instrument was clearer and cleaner than the Sparky with the Ubuntu max2play.

Going to stick with this setup for a while now

Another picture of the options


OdV5WC.png



all in all a big upgrade over max2play. Will run this setup for a Few days and will then Introduce Kali to the Mix and see how it goes.

As of now I still have the Volt Amp and the CAPACITANCE MULTIPLIER but so far using my Marantz Stereo Amp to power the speakers
 
Would love to hear your impression of Volt versus your Marantz PM 6006 used as amplifier.

Does the Volt have volume control?
 
kane said:
not really sure as i have not used either.

what i can say though is that, compared to connecting an optical in to the Marantz SR 6006 or the PM 6006 this sounds better. besides those are USB dacs, and this is a Mini Computer with a dac, so it stores my Music etc as well.
Click to expand...

Got it, I am just trying to understand how good the dac section (boss+kali) is as compared to a good usb dac .The reason being I love your setup and I might consider going for it if the Vana player sounds equally good.
 
jls001 said:
Would love to hear your impression of Volt versus your Marantz PM 6006 used as amplifier.

Does the Volt have volume control?
Click to expand...


Yup thats on the cards to try that as well, ( at the same time i dread it too )

right now next step is to add kali in the mix, once i am clear about which sounds the best then i will add the volt to the setup.

These are the combos i will be testing

RED -Already tested

  • Sparky -Piano 2.1 - Volumio
  • Sparky - Piano 2.1 - Max2play
  • Sparky - piano 2.1 - moode ( not sure is support for sparky is there )
  • Sparky -kali - Volumio
  • Sparky - Kali -Piano 2.1 - Volumio
  • Sparky - Kali -Piano 2.1 - Volt - Volumio
  • RPI 3 - kali - Volumio/moode
  • RPI 3 - Piano 2.1 -Volumio/moode
  • RPI 3 - Kali -Piano 2.1 - Volumio/moode
  • RPI 3 - Kali -Piano 2.1 - Volt - Volumio/moode


ajeshkumarts said:
Volt has provision for connecting a volume pot. Kindly see the diagram with components marked in the below link
https://diyaudiocart.com/ALLO-VOLT-AMP-Audio-Amplifier

Volt+ has volume control on the board.
Click to expand...

thanks i am going to try this as well.
 
I tried Raspberry pi 3 with kali + piano 2.1 + volt with my dayton audio bookshelf speakers. And i Installed volumio on Pi 3. And it sounds really amazing. Before that, i also tried max2play on sparky running Ubuntu but audio output and frequency response was too low. But with volumio on Pi 3, it's amazing.
Check this out here :- https://youtu.be/qEfM0DwbdTE
 
Hi audio experts,
I have bought Allo Boss DAC from allo.com, which is less expensive than the kali + Piano 2.1. Before that i was using vana player complete kit. It's sound was awesome with volumio and with my BookShelf speakers of dayton audio.
But now i want to use Allo Boss DAC with Raspberry Pi 3. So, If someone could suggest me good Woofers or audio system to which i can connect my bookshelf speakers. It should sounds good with Allo Boss and pi 3. And it should not be much expensive. Thanks for paying attention, any help will be appreciated.

Thanks
 
PNPtutorials said:
I tried Raspberry pi 3 with kali + piano 2.1 + volt with my dayton audio bookshelf speakers. And i Installed volumio on Pi 3. And it sounds really amazing. Before that, i also tried max2play on sparky running Ubuntu but audio output and frequency response was too low. But with volumio on Pi 3, it's amazing.
Check this out here :- https://youtu.be/qEfM0DwbdTE
Click to expand...



at the moment my system is running in Sparky, kali and pianno2.1 and the sound has improved by quite a bit. I have had it on play for over 50hours . gues some burn in was required.


I have added a cheap tube pre amp to the mix and the sound is quite nice ( I am liking this combination)

This weekend i am going to have a go with raspberry pi and piano 2.1.

btw in volumio the new 2.0 mode for piano 2.1 is nice, it has mono out for each channel
 
kane said:
Got myself a douk audio from aliexpress

it did take around 40 odd hours for them to start sounding sweeter ( do not know anything about tubes) was an impulse buy but a good one.
Click to expand...

How have you connected the Pre? Is it Sparky -> Piano(+Kali) -> Tube-Pre -> Amplifier?

Do you notice an improvement in sound when you put the Pre in the chain, as compared to when you connect the Piano direct to the Amplifier?
 
SanjeevM said:
How have you connected the Pre? Is it Sparky -> Piano(+Kali) -> Tube-Pre -> Amplifier?

Do you notice an improvement in sound when you put the Pre in the chain, as compared to when you connect the Piano direct to the Amplifier?
Click to expand...

Sparky>>>Kali>>>>Piano2.1 >to the tube Preamp >>>AMP

Power supply is to the Kali


Answer to the question is yes there is an improvement in the sound , i have ordered for GE tubes lets see if those make any more difference to the sound.
 
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