Allo USBRIDGE SIGNATURE Player - Owners Thread

[amit11]

EDIT - moved this post to another appropriate thread
https://www.hifivision.com/threads/...ure-bundle-seeking-opinions.80412/post-894289



I was thinking between the USB version (allo usbridge signature) v/s the coax version (allo digione signature).

My dac does not have usb input. It only has optical and coaxial. So i had a doubt. suppose if i purchase the usbridge signature version, and convert the usb signal to optical/coax using a convertor which i already have i.e. topping d10, then would it reduce the sound quality? OR, it would be better if i purchase digione signature (coax version) and output it directly to the dac. which one would be better sounding?

 

[Fiftyfifty]

EDIT - moved this post to another appropriate thread
https://www.hifivision.com/threads/...ure-bundle-seeking-opinions.80412/post-894289



I was thinking between the USB version (allo usbridge signature) v/s the coax version (allo digione signature).

My dac does not have usb input. It only has optical and coaxial. So i had a doubt. suppose if i purchase the usbridge signature version, and convert the usb signal to optical/coax using a convertor which i already have i.e. topping d10, then would it reduce the sound quality? OR, it would be better if i purchase digione signature (coax version) and output it directly to the dac. which one would be better sounding?

Coax version would be better for you. The usb version has the advantage of higher sample rate decoding and upsampling but you will lose these advantages if you convert the output to coax.

How this helps

 

[firearm12]

I am also thinking of getting allo usbsignature, with my the experience with digione products in past, i think it should be good.

 

[Kannan]

I am also thinking of getting allo usbsignature, with my the experience with digione products in past, i think it should be good.

If you are ok with NAS, get it. Playing music off its USB port is not advised due to lack of galvanic isolation

 

[raghupb]

If you are ok with NAS, get it. Playing music off its USB port is not advised due to lack of galvanic isolation

Does it matter?
NAS will be fed by Ethernet, which I think in turn on same shared bus with USB on RPi, correct?
The HAT is the one that does the clean up and provides "less noisy" USB transport.

Cheers,
Raghu

 

[firearm12]

If you are ok with NAS, get it. Playing music off its USB port is not advised due to lack of galvanic isolation

Ok did not know that. So is playing through usb it worse than playing from nas. When i had digione i played from usb only and it was better than playing on nas.

 

[Kannan]

Ok did not know that. So is playing through usb it worse than playing from nas. When i had digione i played from usb only and it was better than playing on nas.

Yes. With Digione, playback is better on USB. With a self powered hard drive even better. With UsBridge signature, it is a design restriction.

 

[Weathered]

The USBridge Signature version has 3 USB ports, 1 reserved for DAC (clean usb output), 2 input USB ports for WIFI/BT dongles. This is a limitation as they are using the Pi board.
The original USBridge has the Sparky HAT on top of Usbridge, so this wasn't the case.

 

[Kannan]

Does it matter

Yes.. atleast that is what the engineers at Allo state. Even if you see the manual, tge two usb ports in the front are designated for connecting either a wifi adapter or a bluetooth adapter.
The USBridge Signature is based on a minimalist rpi board where the prioritisation is for one clean usb port to connect to the DAC, single power supply and ethernet port for networking and music playback.
Ethernet ny design, has galvanic isolation anyways

 

[Weathered]

+1 Allo confirmed it. I was thinking to upgrade from USBridge to Signature version and decided not to after knowing this.

 

[raghupb]

Yes.. atleast that is what the engineers at Allo state. Even if you see the manual, tge two usb ports in the front are designated for connecting either a wifi adapter or a bluetooth adapter.
The USBridge Signature is based on a minimalist rpi board where the prioritisation is for one clean usb port to connect to the DAC, single power supply and ethernet port for networking and music playback.
Ethernet ny design, has galvanic isolation anyways

So what you saying is it is better that USBridge is applied as a network bridge.
I guess that's why they named it so. Thanks for the explanation.
Cheers,
Raghu

 

[Weathered]

Allo recommended not using noisy SSD on USBridge, and the best they say is to use another RPI + SSD on network and have a galvanic isolation between them.

 

[Kannan]

The only solution for trying a hard drive on the USBridge Signature is to insulate out the power pin on the USB cable, and run a self powered hard drive or use a hub.

 

[firearm12]

I only use wav files and no internet streaming. If in some way, mpd could copy a file to sd card before playing it, it would end all the problems for me.

 

[raghupb]

Allo recommended not using noisy SSD on USBridge, and the best they say is to use another RPI + SSD on network and have a galvanic isolation between them.

I would stay away from SSD for audio. They are inherently noisy buggers.
Small form factor is good, reliability is fair, but then all of these are absolute requirements for laptops.
Bring it into an audio chain and it'll just introduce more noise than a spinner HDD.
Couple this with hi-rez 24/32 bit, high sampling rate business, there's gonna be one noisy sucker at the top of the audio chain.
Cheers,
Raghu

 

[firearm12]

Did anyone try to use cachefs and then mounting files from NAS using nfs. By definition cachefs should cache files in local drive before accessing. Maybe it would help. Looks like fun.

 

[firearm12]

I got my usbridge signature today. It sounds very clean. No comparison with laptop. Perhaps should have bought it earlier.

 

[raghupb]

I got my usbridge signature today. It sounds very clean. No comparison with laptop. Perhaps should have bought it earlier.

If you were running a vanilla player on laptop without tweaks, just borrow one for comparison.
Laptops are way easier to borrow

Cheers,
Raghu

 

[Kannan]

I got my usbridge signature today. It sounds very clean. No comparison with laptop. Perhaps should have bought it earlier.

True....pretty audible differences in sound quality....much dark background which really gets the stage deeper, higher and wider with better space between instruments.
I was on dedicated PC/laptop including a mac based setup for a very long time. Have made extreme tweaks, have run several versions of windows, linux distros and even run Mac on PC, windows on MAC. In between I did have varying setups including a total 3-way active setup that offered me various levels of tuning, DRC tweaks etc.. Have used several media players and have spent hours on various forums tweaking endlessly.
There was major enhanced over running on non-optimized OS/players, but ALLO trumps whatever I could achieve on a computer based setup.

But laptop based setup offers certain freedom which is a compromise over these transports.

Given a choice I would take either, but the computer one with tweaks.

 

[firearm12]

True....pretty audible differences in sound quality....much dark background which really gets the stage deeper, higher and wider with better space between instruments.
I was on dedicated PC/laptop including a mac based setup for a very long time. Have made extreme tweaks, have run several versions of windows, linux distros and even run Mac on PC, windows on MAC. In between I did have varying setups including a total 3-way active setup that offered me various levels of tuning, DRC tweaks etc.. Have used several media players and have spent hours on various forums tweaking endlessly.
There was major enhanced over running on non-optimized OS/players, but ALLO trumps whatever I could achieve on a computer based setup.

But laptop based setup offers certain freedom which is a compromise over these transports.

Given a choice I would take either, but the computer one with tweaks.

Yes i have used digione and digione sig in past and loved them. Somehow spdif is not strong point in my system so was finding it little sharp, maybe the coax cables also put in their color. Usb signature is very clean compared to laptop and definetely better than digione signature for me. Even old digione will trounce any laptop with ease.