Hi there, I have two Ropiees set up - 2 Pi4s, one going to a K9 Pro, another to a Geshelli J2 - both connected via USB and used for headphone listening but in different rooms.
Happy enough, but not blown away by the sound, recently I moved one amp to a room where there was no ethernet for the Pi so I plugged in my Macbook pro via USB and was blown away by the difference. Tonight I’ve tried the other setup, again bypassing the Pi and again, it’s better than through the Pi using Ropiee. With the direct connection the music is brought forward, vocals are like they are singing in my ear, everything’s much more present. It’s really noticeable, not subtle.
I’m no expert in all this, what’s going on? And is there anything I can do to bring the Ropiee/Pi sound up to the quality of the direct connection as I don’t want to be unplugging & plugging in USB cables whenever I want to listen. Many thanks for your thoughts.
Thanks very much for the advice, which is optimal, optical or coax? I’ve never ever used optical, although lots of boxes I’ve owned have had the ability…
With USB, clocking is at the DAC side , done by the DAC’s built-in clock. With S/PDIF, clocking is at the source and DAC needs to reconstruct the clock from the data stream using PLL.
So technically speaking, USB should sound better, but your ears may decide otherwise.
If you don’t hear any added non-musical noises added by going through RPi USB, data transmission seems to be flawless.
There must be another reason, so you might want to show screenshots of your signal path, device setup, and Muse/DSP dialogues in both scenarios in order for anyone to better compare and offer advice.
Well, I prefer to use the DigiOne HAT and its SPDIF/COAX output on a PI4 running the newest ROPIEEE Software, sounds best in my chain… rather cheap actually and pretty good IMHO.
How do I screenshot my signal path? Device setup - it’s just an Ethernet cable into the Pi, then a USB to either the Geshelli J2 DAC, or the K9 pro. No Muse/DSP.
So, I always thought that it would be an upgrade to buy a HAT with Coax/SPDIF out for my Pi, are we saying that if your DAC’s got a USB port, the best sound quality, even when it’s from a Pi, is via USB?
In my (not so expert) view, the more important factor is your DAC, as the USB implementation is literally different from S/PDIF, so don’t think of it as a change of connector but rather as two DACs in one chassis. In the “old” days, some DACs either didn’t offer USB or didn’t implement it well, so using a digital transport made sense. I don’t that this is generally true anymore, and there doesn’t seem to be reason not to choose USB now in most cases.
There are other considerations, such as streaming hi-res files (in which case use USB).
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But, back to the role that RoPieee plays in all of this, its only job is to run Roon Bridge, and its job in turn is to deliver bit-perfect data from Roon Server. Failure at this level is due to some network failure, and the audio impact is severe, not qualitatively worse but rather that literally the sound is failing.
So, if you are hearing differences, there must be some other processing going on leading to a volume level change (which will always result in perceived quality differences). I would suggest investigating that possibility.
Massively depends on your DAC, its USB implementation. I have a DAC where SPDIF/COAX via a Allo DigiOne sounds much better. Your mileage may be different…
Thanks Mikael, no I don’t think I have a better power supply, are you able to recommend one? Am I correct in saying a linear supply is better, I’m no expert in this area.
Interesting on the Amanero USB, maybe I’ll try a HAT after all.
Neither would I - as hardly anybody does a true A/B test and “psychoacoustics” is at play i.e. one hears what one is expected to hear - directly proportional to the money spent…so it must be much better!! I’ve done serious testing (as well as “cable sound”) and the perceived difference is neglectable
