RPI3 and Allo Piano DAC [solved]

Hi all,

I got me an Allo Piano HIFI DAC last week, and I was more than happy with the sound of it.
Once Roon 1.3 was out, I wanted to hear what upsampling tot 384 would bring me.
Boy, was I in for a disappointment…

After 5-10 seconds of music it gets all garbeled up, stuttering, static noise, and then silcence.
Roon bravely tries once more with the next song, same result, and it’s silence from there on.

Roon: An audiofile is loading slowly. This may indicate a performance or hardware problem.

The Allo Piano - version 1 with the Headphone out - sits on a RPI3 running DietPi V143.
Piano soundcard driver loaded. 384 support installed. Pi is wired to the network, not using Wifi.

Here’s the kicker: my second setup, a RPI2 with the same DietPi settings and an IQAudio PiDAC+ has no issues at all playing 384 to my amp.

Roonserver lives on a Lenovo Thinkpad, i5 quad, running Ubuntu 16.04, music lib on external USB drive.
All Roon devices have wired network connections.

Does anyone have a clue what might cause this, and more importantly, how can this be solved?

thanks for your attention.
Eric

Perhaps @ALLO_audio_boards or @Dan_Knight can sprinkle some wisdom here?

2 Likes

Thnks Rene!

hi there.
i will have to ask the team on Monday about this.
sorry i cant help you now.
please PM me your email so i can put you in contact with support.
regards
Andre

Thank you, will send you a PM

Hi @EricG

I replicated your setup:

  • RPi 3
  • Piano DAC 1
  • 384KHz kernel installed
  • 384KHz up-sampling on Roon player

All seems to be working fine here. I did notice that 384KHz up-sampling from Roon uses around 25Mbps network bandwidth. This shouldn’t be an issue, at least on LAN. However, we may need to check bandwidth throughput on your network, should the below not provide any info.

Lets check your logs and system setup.
Can you please send me a bug report, it will send us the information we need:

NB: Before sending the bug report. Replicate the issue you are experiencing with Roon, to ensure logs are detailed with the issue.
http://dietpi.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=499

EDIT:

Roonserver lives on a Lenovo Thinkpad, i5 quad, running Ubuntu 16.04, music lib on external USB drive.
All Roon devices have wired network connections.

Also, can you take a screenshot of CPU usage on this device when you receive the issue?

apt-get install htop
htop

Funnily enough, I have the same laptop Thinkpad 13 i5 and use it with Roon, however, running Windows (naughty me lol :smile:)

EDIT2:

Is RPi compatibly switch enabled on Allo Piano DAC?

Hi Dan,

thnx for the quick reply. I started playing music again, and the first 5-6 songs played OK.
CPU-load on the Thinkpad (Roonserver) around 30-35%. Looks fine to me.
Screenshot attached from the moment the sound started stuttering.

The second zone, RPI2 with IQAudio DAC+ has no such problems at all.
How can I make the network load visible?

thnx
Eric

Hi Dan, Andre, @ALLO_audio_boards

Are those yellow jumpers for setting RPI compatibility? They seem to be in OFF position.

Hi Dan,

I placed the IQAudio DAC+ back on the RPI3, and the same stuttering occured.
I think we can rule out the Allo Piano being the culprit for now.

@Dan_Knight @ALLO_audio_boards @RBM

After talking to Rene, inspired by Dan’s network-load remark, I rebooted modem, router and switch.
The music has been playing flawlessly for the past hour. It looks like my network was the main issue.

Thank you all for your suggestions and attempts to help me solve this.

Happy listening!
Eric

1 Like

Yep, thats the puppy, one at the top. Although if i’am honest, I have no idea what it does lol :smile:. Logic suggests it must be good to be compatible with RPi :slight_smile:

After talking to Rene, inspired by Dan’s network-load remark, I rebooted modem, router and switch.
The music has been playing flawlessly for the past hour. It looks like my network was the main issue.

Excellent, great to hear.

thank you Dan!

But the mystery remains… What does the switch do? And should be on or off?

Questions, questions… :wink: