RPI 4B streamer + Topping E30 or Allo Boss 2 player

[mbhangui]

Got it, one more doubt, do we really need Allo card for the transport purpose? As RPI4 already has HDMI option, cant we directly use it as we will just use to pass digital signals to external DAC ?

RPI doesn't have a good quality audio. It has lot of jitter. This is the reason why people either connect I2S card on the GPIO pin or connect a USB dac to the usb port. The I2S interface using GPIO has limitations on speed and cannot do DSD playback. That's the only drawback of using I2S from a RPI. So due to current limitations of the I2S on RPI, best is to use a good quality USB dac. But even with I2S you can play music with sampling rate of 192kHz.

 

[saketgyani]

One problem with these allo devices are the quality of usb ports.

That’s interesting.
I had to send my USBridge Signature back as the ‘Clean USB’ port wasn’t working.
They fixed it, but there was a faulty USB port for sure.

 

[tapmal5]

Try here. I placed a preorder for 2GB version and got the delivery last week. 4GB model is in stock
robocraze

Out of stock when checked today.

 

[mbhangui]

That’s interesting.
I had to send my USBridge Signature back as the ‘Clean USB’ port wasn’t working.
They fixed it, but there was a faulty USB port for sure.

I took out the usb ports from my old computer using a de-soldering workstation and replaced all of them on my usbridge signature. Even the micro usb port of my allo revolution dac was of bad quality. That too I replaced it by removing it from one of my old android phone.

 

[saketgyani]

I took out the usb ports from my old computer using a de-soldering workstation and replaced all of them on my usbridge signature. Even the micro usb port of my allo revolution dac was of bad quality. That too I replaced it by removing it from one of my old android phone.

That’s great!
Though I don’t have the confidence to pull it off. In case the USB ports go bad again, thanks to you, I now know that I need to get them replaced with better quality ones.

 

[vbutani]

RPI doesn't have a good quality audio. It has lot of jitter. This is the reason why people either connect I2S card on the GPIO pin or connect a USB dac to the usb port. The I2S interface using GPIO has limitations on speed and cannot do DSD playback. That's the only drawback of using I2S from a RPI. So due to current limitations of the I2S on RPI, best is to use a good quality USB dac. But even with I2S you can play music with sampling rate of 192kHz.

Thanks for clearing my doubt! I think for now I will continue with USB port and wait for future I2S releases.

 

[jmascreen]

Thanks for clearing my doubt! I think for now I will continue with USB port and wait for future I2S releases.

If you are sticking too USB try to demo some DDC in your setup

 

[vbutani]

If you are sticking too USB try to demo some DDC in your setup

Thanks for the suggestion, by chance have you experienced any improvement using it over USB? Please share pointers if any budget DDC available in India.

 

[jmascreen]

Thanks for the suggestion, by chance have you experienced any improvement using it over USB? Please share pointers if any budget DDC available in India.

I changed from USBridge to PI2AES now using either I2S or AES/EBU connections

 

[vbutani]

I changed from USBridge to PI2AES now using either I2S or AES/EBU connections

PI2AES is great option, but I think they discontinued it due to parts shortage. Any sound improvements perceived using I2S over usb in unbalanced mode(RCA)?

 

[jmascreen]

PI2AES is great option, but I think they discontinued it due to parts shortage. Any sound improvements perceived using I2S over usb in unbalanced mode(RCA)?

COAX is good, you can try digione signature etc..

 

[John]

Chipping in here.

I have Allo Boss Acrylic. So it is basically a DAC (hat) and I have added an RPi4 to make it a streamer+ DAC.
Currently is is connected to a pre-amp Xdoo MT602 via RCA. And then to Allo Volt + (Double) amp . Then to Polk Speakers RTi4.

I like the sound, but I am thinking of getting the Topping e30 and connecting it via USB to the Boss Acrylic (so as to bypass the Allo Boss DAC).
Anyone has views on Allo Boss DAC vs E30?

 

[zhopudey]

Hi, bumping an old thread. I have a boss2 player which I use with moode. How can I get the dac to work on raspbian or Ubuntu? I'd like to use the rpi for some other purposes as well.

 

[bobbyprajan]

Hi, bumping an old thread. I have a boss2 player which I use with moode. How can I get the dac to work on raspbian or Ubuntu? I'd like to use the rpi for some other purposes as well.

See if your distribution recognise the Boss2 as an audio device. From a terminal prompt, run "aplay -l" and see if it lists the Boss2

 

[jmascreen]

Hi, bumping an old thread. I have a boss2 player which I use with moode. How can I get the dac to work on raspbian or Ubuntu? I'd like to use the rpi for some other purposes as well.

you need to add following details to /boot/config.txt file and after reboot check aplay -L

# Uncomment some or all of these to enable the optional hardware interfaces
#dtparam=i2c_arm=on
dtparam=i2s=on
#dtparam=spi=on

dtoverlay=allo-boss2-dac-audio
#dtoverlay=allo-digione

 

[mbhangui]

Hi, bumping an old thread. I have a boss2 player which I use with moode. How can I get the dac to work on raspbian or Ubuntu? I'd like to use the rpi for some other purposes as well.

moode is raspbian. The boss2 player will work. Boss2 dac Driver is included on RPI 5.4.77 kernel onwards.

Install raspbian and go to the shell prompt and execute the following commands to check if allo-boss2-dac-audio.dtbo is present by executing the ls -l command.

1. cd /boot/overlay
2. ls -l allo-boss2-dac-audio.dtbo

If it is present boss2 will work. After this just edit /boot/config.txt and add/replace dtoverlay with dtoverlay=allo-boss2-dac-audio

 

[zhopudey]

Unbelievable! I got the dac working with just 2 clicks and 2 lines in terminal. Can't believe this is linux . Thanks for the help, everyone.
Next up - raspotify, and then REW.

 

[zhopudey]

Is there a dummies guide to using Camilla dsp or something like it on the rpi with an I2S dac? And using filters generated from rew.

 

[az9012]

Is there a dummies guide to using Camilla dsp or something like it on the rpi with an I2S dac? And using filters generated from rew.

I couldn't find a guide for dummies for Camilla dsp honestly. I couldn't use it either. I'm sure it's capable and powerful in terms of features but it's too much of a faff and not at all user friendly.

 

[zhopudey]

I couldn't find a guide for dummies for Camilla dsp honestly. I couldn't use it either. I'm sure it's capable and powerful in terms of features but it's too much of a faff and not at all user friendly.

I am reading up on avnirvana and on asr. Seems like you just need to output the filters from rew in wave format and then import into Camilla.
I have managed to get my Allo dac working in Ubuntu on the rpi. Next task is to get rew and umik working.