Allo USBridge board

@Phil_Wright I agree with you that individual preferences play a big role. I have not heard the Meridian Explorer 2, but I think it is fair to say that at around $200, the Meridian and Dragonfly Red (and DF Black at $100) offer great sound quality for the money.

1 Like

We have found a problem with USB1 and Usbridge USB driver. We are working with actions semi to fix this problem. Will update soon with the findings or ETA

1 Like

Great thanks.

Hi . also have an issue with the USBridge with DietPi. Have connected the bridge to a Technics SU-G700 amp directly. It is all working fine for a couple of hours. (sound is brillant by the way) - after a certain time the system is not able to find the USBridge anymore as roon endpoint. I can connect to the WEB API and can also connect over ssh - the sparky is still working but the connection to the DAC is gone. After a reboot everything is working fine again.

Donā€™t have this problem when using a RPI with DietPI. Any idea how to fix this?

Hi @Christian_Kirschniak,

It might be a USB driver issue on the Sparky, but it could also be many other things. I think for @allo.com to assist, maybe answers to the following questions would help:

  1. Is rebooting the USBRIDGE the only fix? What about powering down the Technics amp, or unplugging and re-plugging the USB cable?
  2. Is there anything in the DietPi logs indicating a disconnect? I would look at dmesg and see if anything is logged.
  3. Roon uses ALSA(https://www.alsa-project.org) for playback and discovering devices. Check ā€œaplay -lā€ and see if the Technics is listed when it isnā€™t showing on Roon.
  4. How are you currently powering the USBRIDGE? I assume the Technics DAC does not need power from the USB bus, but I guess power could still be an issue. If youā€™re using the PSU included with the USBRIDGE you should be fine though.
  5. I guess environmental factors could also affect it, like how hot the USBRIDGE is running? You can check by issuing the command: ā€œcpuā€
  6. Lastly it could be a cable issue, but it is unlikely if the Raspi is fineā€¦if you do have another USB cable around something to try I guess.

Wouter

Hi,

are you using wifi or wired network ?

Hi Anders, do you think they would make one for the Digione?

Hi Bill,

I shall check it :+1:.

Hi guys, does anybody know how I can get Spotify Connect to work on the USBridge? I have installed Raspotify (works really well on a Pi3) through dietpi but it does not produce any sound. I am running the latest firmware and I have put the audio output to USB Dac. Any suggestions? Thx J

(Note: Airplay works through Shairport)

Hey @Jeroen_Biemans,

I know when I played with Raspotify previously, I had to specify the USB dac device manually. You can get the device name with ā€˜aplay -lā€™

If that fails, you could try flashing Volumio to the usbridgeā€¦I know it has a Spotify plugin already.

Wouter

It works for me although i do alter the config file to specify my dac by device name.

These various plugins are a pain to work withā€¦

On a raspberryPi, I got raspotify to work using this in the configuration file: OPTIONS="ā€“device plughw:0" instead of ā€œā€“device hw:0ā€ You can always tryā€¦ Sound was really choppy though, so I installed gmediarender and the AirSpot app on Android (which lets Spotify connect to Airplay and DLNA hardward), and that worked for me.

Or just get a chromecast !

Thanks for your suggestion. I would like to try that one, can you please copy me the specific line of the config so I can drop my dac in there. thx

hi @allo.com,

Any further feedback on the USB driver issues? Please let me know if there is anything you need tested/triedā€¦

Regards,
Wouter

Here goes. SSH into your USBridge.

aplay -l gives

You can find your dac name here. Then

nano /etc/default/raspotify which will allow you to edit the config. This is mine

Hope it helps. Afterwards

systemctl restart raspotify

Yes we already have a solution for usb1.1 , please allow a few days to see how we can incorporate .

Yeah Sudeep just shared the wonderful news with meā€¦thanks so much for getting to a solution. At the moment I can play songs via the USBridge and Dragonfly Red up to 88/24 on Roon and it sounds great. Only small issue remaining is playing 96/24 filesā€¦atm they cause noise(not sure if this is because of bw on the port?)

Solution works for me as well (Mossic DAC is USB 1). Thanks to Allo for the efficient support.

Hi Wouter,

So there is a fix for the usb issue? What is it? I can see you talking about a fix, but I cannot see the fix :slight_smile:

Kristof

hi @Kristof_Baute,

At the moment the fix is quite a few new files, and steps to fix on the USBridge, but I am sure @allo.com will release a proper fix on the DietPi image soonā€¦

@allo.com, are you happy to share the steps to fix this manually on DietPi in the meantime? I can do a quick write-up on how I fixed it using Sudeepā€™s stepsā€¦

Regards,
Wouter