I use the USBridge with a Mytek liberty and it sounds pretty good to me.
The USBridge is running Dietpi and seems to be pretty solid. Dietpi doesn’t have the the UI of Volumio and you have to SSH into it to adjust the settings, but that’s pretty straightfoward. I’ve had a couple of issues with the updating, so now run it from the micro USB rather than the Sparky eMMc, making it easier to do a clean reinstall.
I power the Sparky with an Ifi too, mainly becasue I had one lying around.
I thought about the Qutest before I got the Liberty, full MQA decoding and rendering swung it in the Liberty’s favour.
Yeah, that sucks. I’m in contact with Allo if they are willing to send me a replacement for the Sparky. If the updateprocess was not faulty I would have never touched the eMMC-card and it would not have been stuck. We will see.
I got best results by powering my USBridge and its Sparky board with two separate iFi supplies (jumper removed).
I am a great fan of Metrum Acoustics. You might want to compare their Amethyst DAC.
They can bundle it together with their Ambre (Roon Ready transport).
I replaced my USBridge with the Ambre and noticed a major step up in SQ, although you can‘t go wrong, as the USBridge is unbeatable value.
Do you know to what extent that step up is from going from USB to i2S? With I2S, you not only avoid common USB issues but also are using the source’s clock, not the DAC’s. I don’t have Metrum gear, but with my Holo Spring KTE 3 DAC, I2S from an SU-1 is quite a bit better than direct USB.
Thanks for the replies @Dick_Vliek, @Geoff_Coupe, @Mark_363 and @William. I find the whole streamer debate quite difficult as I don’t really see any prospect of testing one in an environment like my own so its a case of having to go with reviews and feedback from sites like this one.
I am not familiar with the Metrum Acoustics, I will need to go off and have a read of the internet. I suppose getting their Amethyst DAC and Ambre streamer together you can, at least, be sure of compatibility.
So much better, before I would have the iPad set up with the dongle, headphones and battery pack all hanging off of it. Then sit in bed using my iPhone as remote.
I was going to use that very word
When I get a moment I want to write up the instructions in their own thread on here.
Hadn’t seen this discussion before, but I would like to hear more, I’m very focused on in-tethered.
I often use an iPad or iPhone, either with the Audeze Lightning cable or a USB dongle to the Hugo 2, for the big cans. But on my bedside table, I have a SonicOrbiter SE with a Geek Out, so I can use the iPad in-tethered, but it isn’t mobile since the SOSE needs power.
So you can use a 20,000mAh powerbank to power the USBridge. Then have a short USB cable to your USB DAC. So you are only tethered to your gear by headphones cable.
There’s nothing hanging off the iPad/Tablet/Surface you’re using. So those browsing devices can be untethered.
This is a really good powerbank I use that will power USBridge all day:
I’m power the USBridge via the stock wallwart and an iFi Power with the jumper off, I cant perceive any difference from just supplying power from the iFi Power so I’ll think I’ll just use the iFi.
I spent a couple of hours listening last night and if there are differences in SQ between the iPad set up and the USBridge set up then they are minimal, originally I thought the bass was much deeper on the USBridge but I think I just had the volume higher when I first started listening.
Having the iPad untethered is a huge plus for me. Very happy.
Get a few of each. If one is bad quality, the postage cost to return it for a refund will exceed the cost of buying a couple extra… I never had that experience with these cables but have with other cheap stuff, so I learnt that lesson the hard way.
Plus you’ll find a use for the extras somewhere else at some point.
Listening to Fun by Coldplay, in which there‘s a lot of intricate, bright guitar, keys and vocals going on, the separation was better and the background darker but the difference wasn‘t night and day.
With the Ambre into Pavane Level 3, the difference is night and day.
I retract my earlier comment, did some A-B listening last night, bass is definitely tighter and better defined. Heard a lot of nuances that I had never picked up on before, this was on ripped CD’s that I have listened to for 20 years.
Much better overall listening experience compared to using the iPad as an endpoint, not that it is bad in any way.
