I told them i am looking for a newer firmware than 1.42. They then send me to a page with manuals. Sounds crazy but true.
Yes, and I suppose you then told them āthe firmware is not on the page you told meā. Just wondering what they said then
The A26, like the R26, is a dac with a streamer like a dac + an RPI. There is a firmware (OS) for the streamer like Roopie or Volumio for an RPI.
This is firmware 1.42: there is no update.
Itās also a dac with machine software that has a menu (settings display) and decodes PCM and DSD.
The update, as Jussy indicated, modifies this system.
If you donāt understand or donāt know what youāre doing, donāt do it
I think 1.42 refers to the streamer firmware version?
You may need to ask for the DSD Direct mode fix firmware. This is the controller MCU firmware, not related to the streamer module.
There are two separate firmware inside, one for the DAC control that deals with the display, etc. And one for the streamer that handles network functions.
Yes but it is not a Pi?
What Linux distro is it running, specifically ?
And what kernel ?
No, something else:
I have no idea.
I havenāt got time to try the network input there yet. I just have it plugged to the NAA also serving Holo Spring 3 and Musical Fidelity M3x DAC.
Yes but I asked Stef because he manually updated to NAA 4.5.0
So he must know which package he installed 
Yeah, he needs to answer that question. But looks like the armhf package would work if the distro is remotely up to date.
https://www.sigmastarsemi.com/uploadfile/file/20220419/20220419021426_98246.pdf
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Yeh and if he could manually install latest NAA then it means can manually check the distro version and kernel version
For example RPi2 used ARM Cortex-A7
I guess it is some Chinese SoM they use. But not so different from the Italian ones Iāve used myself.
Pretty limited capacity with 100 Mbps Ethernet though, but also low power.
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CM4 would use a bit more power and add a bit more cost
But would have been so nice for NAA OS
Much less shortages issues with the CM4 vs Pi4
Currently āarmelā architecture networkaudiod package is built on Acmeās Aria module:
Which is even lower power system. But can do up to DSD256 with itās single core 400 MHz CPU and 256 MB of RAM.
CM4 can run even HQPlayer OS and HQPlayer Embedded with some simple PCM upsampling!
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Wow this
Just put on top of Rpi4!!
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Good measurements with this DAC. With the balanced outputs, just make sure your amp as at least 47k ohm input impedance.
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A26 is an evolution of the R26 for the streamer part, not using the same motherboard (100ASK-T113-Pro Allwinner with 2 cpu) and therefore not the same update process (driver, etc).
Latest streamer version: 1.42 integrates NAA 4.4.0-56
The kernel is 5.4.61 #12 SMP PREEMPT on Debian 12 and supports the networkaudiod_4.5.0-57_armhf.deb package.
But Iām not at home and Iām giving you the info from memory.
The important thing to remember is that version 1.42 is particularly optimized and requires no modification to get the best out of HQplayer.
I played the geek for fun and isolated NAA on one of the 2 cores (cpu-shield), reduced the processor speed to min (480Mhz vs 1.10 Ghz max) and completely removed swap.
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Thanks!
Fairly up to date (compared to some other streamers out there) although would be nice for them to update kernel to at least 5.15
Yes, I performed the same optimizations on my ZenStreamā¦ but its system is fossilized in Debian Jessie ! 
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ZenStream is exactly the dinosaur I was thinking about 
5.4 is not so bad, it will be maintained until December 2025. Although for example latest audio driver things have not landed there yet, only in 5.15 and newer so far.
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Lots of cool things came with 5.15
Including multichannel support for my Focusrite interface
Works absolutely perfectly with simple Pi4 + NAA OS 4.5.0 - no pops or unusual behavious