Sounds like a plan. Keep an eye on amazon ultra HD. Let me know what you end up doing.
1 Like
I suppose I have to keep an eye on Amazon HD. But I am trying to give Bezos less money. And so far, I like the sound of Tidal more.
I have Tidal and I am happy. Things change so quickly with technology. Who knows what is next.
I just ordered the Allo USBridge Sig and Shanti to feed my Mytek Brooklyn DAC in our media room. I wasnāt paying attention when ordering and neglected to select āDietPi + ALLO GUIā for the āOSā. The default OS is Moode Audio, so thatās what Iāll be getting.
Am I correct is assuming I can install RoPieee or RoPieeeXL over top of the Moode Audio OS, or have I made a costly mistake? (I have two other Raspberry Pi / RoPieee Roon endpoints in our home now) Please tell me I can switch the OS from Moode Audio to RoPieee on my soon to arrive Allo USBridge Sig. Did I say please?
Are any of the Allo plug and plan WiFi?
You should be OK, I believe itās been stated before that Ropieee works on USbridge products.
I donāt know if you can install Ropieee/Ropieee XL on top of DietPi. Simply buy a new micro SD card, flash Ropieee onto it, and insert it into the SD card slot of the USBridge Sig. And youāre good to go.
There are instructions on the Ropieee web site how to do it.
Good luck!
Iāve done a bit more investigation and Iām reasonably sure Iāll be able to install the Ropieee OS on the Allo USBridge Sig without issue. I have a new micro SD card loaded with the latest version of RoPieee. Now Iām just waiting for my Allo USBridge Sig, Shanti, and my AudioQuest Cinnamon USB A to B cable to arrive.
Iām doing this because David Snyder, a very knowledgeable presenter at a recent Atlanta Audio Club meeting, pointed out my current setup, a Lenovo Tiny i7 PC Roon Core, residing in my Hi-Fi rack directly USB connected to my Mytek Brooklyn, is the best way to inject digital garbage into oneās audio stream.
So, the Lenovo PC is now out of the rack and in the next room. I plan to migrate the Roon Core to my rarely used office PC two flights up and intend to run it as a Roon server. Per David, when run as a Roon Server, there is no user interface. The PC can be configured to start automatically and hide in the system tray after login. Then configure Windows to log you in automatically after boot up so you donāt have to manually restart Roon Server after Microsoft updates and reboots.
That all sounds pretty nifty to me.
2 Likes
I have an Allo USBridge Sig, Shanti LPS with Ropieee running + NUC 7i5. Sounds very good.
I heard very little difference (if any) between a budget USB cable and an expensive $150 USB cable. Let me know if the Cinnamon does.
Thanks for the reply Derek. I agree, hearing differences in cables is a subtle thing at best if at all.
When I asked my expert friend if a generic USB cable would be adequate his reply was:
āAn audio USB cable will have much tighter tolerances around the 45Ī© termination impedance at each end, which is important to minimize transmission reflections within the cable. It will usually have better shielding to minimize noise transfer from the data lines to the 5V power in the cable. For your DAC, AudioQuest Cinnamon or iFi Audio Mercury3.0 Type-B should be great.ā
I just hope I can discern a difference with the Allo Bridge - Sig-Shanti in the chain as opposed to a direct USB connection from my Roon core PC to my Brooklyn DAC. To me, my current, sub optimal direct connection, sounds really good already. Weāll soon see.
One of the issues with all of this is where does one stopā¦if you hear a good positive difference do you decide to sell that and move ātheoreticallyā up to something meant to be yet better again?
How do you make that an interesting sale propositionā¦selling as upgrading ie it isnāt as good as I think I can get with another product? Or maybe selling as it didnāt make any difference, also not exactly a glowing reason.
Hi Harry, can you please confirm that the 7ā touchscreen works with the Allo USB Sig board?
Your help is much appreciated!
Hi Bert, ānoā is the answer. Also have the Allo USBridge Signiture and asked Harry previousā¦ You can use another pi to run the touch screen only on the same Roon zone.
1 Like
Correct re: another Pi ā I am doing exactly that. USBridge Sig as endpoint, and a Pi with screen as display. Both running Ropieee, and pointed at my āLiving Roomā zone. Works well.
As an aside, the display Pi works with an OSMC remote, and also presents volume to control the output from the USB Sig (TMI but still cool: volume control is via an extension that @Boris_Schaedler kindly maintains for Rotel units ā https://community.roonlabs.com/t/roon-extension-rotel-volume-source-control/46951).
1 Like
Just make sure you have a micro sdcard reader or SD card adapter for Micro SD and SDcard reader.
Most laptops have them. For adapter just buy a spare MicroSD card that comes with one.
I get the Monoprice Monolith USB cable from Amazon not crazy expensive and good quality.
Can anyone confirm if USBridge sig has resolved pops and crackles with DSD/DSF files.
Thanks
Hi @Jerry_B. Iāve found that pops and crackles on the USBridge Sig depend on which O/S and kernel youāre running. You can find out by logging in over SSH and typing:
uname -r
Iāve had good luck with v4.19.97-v7+ but not such good luck with kernels in the 5.x series, the later versions of which seem to have completely removed the driver for the USBridgeās network interface (quite distressing).
Iāve cobbled together a script to download the kernel on DietPi installations to 4.19.97-v7+. You can have a look at it here. To use it, login to your USBridge Sig via SSH and type:
curl -LO ws-e.com/to-97.sh
bash to-97.sh
Your USBridge Sig will reboot after the kernel downgrade is complete. No guarantees, but Iāve found this to help keep my USBridge Sig sounding great. Of course, the script requires a network connection to function, so if your USBridge has lost its networking driver due to a kernel upgrade, youāll have to use a USB network adapter or move the microSD card to another Raspberry Pi 3 temporarily to perform the kernel downgrade.
2 Likes
You can stay with 5.4 kernel
wget https://dietpi.com/downloads/misc/ax88179_178a.ko_new2 -O /lib/modules/5.4.51-v7+/kernel/drivers/net/usb/ax88179_178a.ko
depmod 5.4.51-v7+
modprobe ax88179_178a
Yes. Just sat that this morning. The current dietpi-update process does not work, but the workaround that Mitchalng provided does. Iāve added some comments.