Allo USBridge board

Hi, not sure if anyone encountered this.
I use USBridge with Project Pre Box S2.
I opened the J28 jumper, I use two PSU for USBridge (but also used only one with Jumper closed).
I use dedicated PowerBank to feed Project. (the Project is cannot start when only plugged to USBridge. I first have to start the DAC with battery then connect to USBridge. When DAC is working I can remove the battery and it still works).
All works fine, till I do some changes to configuration of USBridge (changing the IP address to STATIC). After I save the configuration of USBridge and reboot, I can access USBridge, I see it in Roon, however the signal that now is feeding the DAC is distorted. For regular files, a lot of distortion, for MQA also distorted in a way that even BLUE dot is lost indicating not bit perfect signal.
When I refresh the SDCard again, do no changes in the configuration, then again all works good. After first permanent change to USBridge configuration, again USB signal is damaged. Any clue?

PS. I started with 159 now I am on 6.1 image (on 159 after changing configuration there were no sound, on 159 the sound becomes distorted).

PS2. Project works fine with input from computer.
PS3. When I had no sound I also tried Merdian Explore 2. It worked, but the sound level was very low. Again all was fixed after I relesh the SDcard and do no changes.

Oh Wow! Didnā€™t know that a receiver that ā€œoldā€ would have a DAC that could help me get Roon. Thanks for that advice.

Hi Dan, Iā€™m still a bit confused about the MQA decoding. I thought that Tidal/Roon send out the MQA track (when available) and the Dragonfly ā€œunfolds itā€ (does all of the work). For example, right now I just plug the Dragonfly into my Mac, and listen to Tidal MQA tracks on my headphones directly from Tidal. I would think that plugging the Dragonfly directly into a USBridge would provide the same simplicity, but glad Iā€™m checking here first!

Ultimately, I want the best sound quality possible without investing too much money up front at this time, because I suspect I may grow into a better amp/DAC in the future.

Dick had mentioned just plugging in an ALLO Digione directly into the Denon with Coax. Would that be better sound than the (potential) Dragonfly/USBridge route?

The Dragon fly is an MQA renderer. The Meridian Explorer 2 is an MQA decoder and Renderer in one package.
The renderer will fully unfold an already first fold decoded MQA file. Currently the Tidal Desk top app does this although this feature is coming to ROON soon (No actual dates). We are told.

So I answer myself :slight_smile:
I worked with support, and it looks like when you click Save settings via GUI it changes USB Audio to 1.1.

The workaround is to edit /DietPi/uEnv.txt aotg.aotg1_speed value to 0.

Great support from Allo. That was quick.

Well, using only the Tidal desktop application, the Tidal desktop application (depending on setup) can do the first unfold and then have the Dragon fly do the 2nd unfold. Roon, however, does not do any Tidal unfolding, so any MQA tidal files streamed through Roon would not be MQA processed and the Dragon Fly would do nothing. Please note that the Roon devs have said this is coming, but, there is not time frame.

Alternatively, if you had a full MQA DAC like the Meridian Explorer 2, then to make it work, the software (either Tidal desktop or Roon) must pass the file to the DAC unfolded and the DAC will do ALL the MQA unfolding. Roon can now pass the file to an Explorer 2 and let it do its MQA magic.

All a bit confusing, I know. I hope the explanations have helped.

That totally makes sense now! Thanks. Glad Iā€™m on track to buy the correct equipment now!

Thanks Chris. That makes sense now. Big help.

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For people who are comfortable with occasional shell magic, the current price/performance winners in my experiments with some not-too-shabby DACs (SU-1>Holo Spring KTE 3, Soekris dac1541), against well-regarded plug-and-play alternatives, are the USBridge for USB DAC sources, and Pi2+Pi 2 Designs 502DAC for S/PDIF coax. Iā€™ve not tried DigiOne against the Pi2+502DAC.

I have a Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 connected to computer, with an iFi nano iUSB3 between. Is the USBridge the most price-worthy step forward for me? Will it yield any noticeable improvements over iFi nano iUSB3?

I donā€™t need a streamer, I consider buying the USBridge just for decoupling from computer. Maybe there are better ways to do that than USBridge? Something like this https://hifimediy.com/high-speed-usb-isolator-480Mbps ?

If you donā€™t care about streaming, the best price/performance in computer>DAC isolation I have experience with is the Schiit Eitr, USB in>S/PDIF coax out.

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If anyone is interested in Native DSD playback there is an updated sb audio drivers for USBridge dated 7th feb 2018.
The following native DSD support added:
QUAD Artera
Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital
Matrix Audio Quattro II
Topping D30 (XMOS)
WaveIO USB Audio 2.0
Soekris dac1101
Engineered Electronics Stereo

You can download and test from here: https://github.com/sparky-sbc/sparky-test/tree/master/pro-ject-s2

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Hi @Pawel_Walczak Thanks for your support.

Thanks to @Magnus , based on your post we have verified DSD native support on Pro-Ject S2 digital.

This Dac ID was not present on existing driver. I got the ID information from @Pawel_Walczak .
shared me lsusb and cat /proc/asound/card1/stream0 results. with Pro-Ject S2 digital Dac.

with updated driver USBridge supports Pro-Ject S2 digital Dac with Native DSD.

Nice, makes it more interesting for sure. But how much difference does USBridge makes if you already have a decent USB fixer (I have iFi nano iUSB3)? I would use clean power to USBridge and Sparky.

Iā€™m actually using this combination:

USBridge -> XLO USB Cable -> iFi micro iUSB3.0 -> iFi Gemini3.0 USB Cable -> iFi micro iDAC2

Prior to that, I was using the native USB output on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. While it would be an unhelpful exaggeration to say that the difference is hugeā€¦it most definitely is noticeable, especially during longer listening sessions. If you have already invested $200 in the nano iUSB3.0, another $150 (+s/h) for an Allo is not a big deal. Iā€™d say, go for it. Consider the Gemini or Gemini3.0 cable as well.

Thank you! I just did that and now Iā€™m on v6.1

Thing is: I canā€™t get to work anymoreā€¦ Roon discovers only the three generic USB ports and the soundcard selection within the Allo UI is set to ā€œnoneā€. Canā€™t change it, it keeps jumping back to ā€˜noneā€™. The downstream Brooklyn is powered on and set to USB input. Whatā€™s going wrong here?

I would start with usual suspect and check:
cat /DietPi/uEnv.txt
and check if aotg.aotg1_speed value is set to 0.

Thanks! That value did the trick, perfect!

I did this and now I can get no playback on my ProJect S2. In Roon everything shows as playing but no audio. USB from Macbook to S2 works fine. Am I missing anything beyond doing the update on the USBridge?

Thanks!

cat /DietPi/uEnv.txt

uenvcmd=setenv os_type linux;
bootargs=earlyprintk clk_ignore_unused selinux=0 scandelay console=tty0 loglevel=1 real_rootflag=rw root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootwait init=/lib/systemd/systemd aotg.urb_fix=1 aotg.aotg1_speed=0