Arcam IrDACII connected to a Mac Mini via Usb (Wireworld interconnect) on my main system.
Arcam rDAC connected via Allo Digione with Raspberry Pi 2 using Ropiee coaxial connection on my secondary system.
Songs Play:1 (if we can consider this a DAC) in the kitchen.
Still experimenting so things can change in a near future.
Computer Room iMac + HRT Musicstreamer II
Living Room Nuc + Arcam IrDac II
Schiit Bifrost Multibit USB5(main) , Schiit Modi Multibit (Desktop), Klipsch RPM15 Built-in DAC(Alternate Home), Hifiberry DAC+ PRO (bedroom), IQAudio PI DAC Pro (Spare) , Allo Boss (Family room)
I was using ropieee with a digi+ Pro and an Ayre codex but am very impressed by the oppo udp-105. Am sticking with that’s for now.
What is the gadget driving the Explorer?
Think of it as a Pi on steroids, with better networking and USB, running Roon Bridge on Linux (duh).
6 Likes
ROCK -> Livingroom -> Mac Mini -> Wadia di122
ROCK -> Study -> MacPro - NuPrime uDSD DAC
Lumin S1 network music player
2 Likes
Cambridge Audio 851N
1 Like
RPi w/ Allo DigiOne -> Schiit Gungnir Multibit ->David Berning MicroZOTL -> Sennheiser HD600
RPi w/Allo DigiOne -> Channel Islands Audio VDA*2 -> Music Reference RM5 -> McCormack DNA-1 -> KEF LS50s + REL T7i
The RPi DigiOnes are running Roon Bridge on DietPi for Allo GUI. This combo has brought out the best in both the Gumby and the VDA2. Gumby is awesome. The VDA2 driven thus punches way above its weight class!
1 Like
Rene, what Linux distro are you running on the CuBox? I have a Sonicorbiter SE — a CuBox that came prepackaged with a proprietary Linux build from Sonore — and it’s being temperamental, so I’m contemplating flashing a card with an alternative OS + RoonBridge and seeing if that improves the situation.
I’m running Armbian on the Cuboxes to great succes.
Using the legacy version (3.14 kernel, https://dl.armbian.com/cubox-i/Debian_jessie_default.7z). The mainline kernel (4.x) is still somewhat unfinished for audio, but legacy is fine.
What DAC will you be hooking up?
2 Likes
Pi3 + Allo DigiOne >> Primare Pre32 + MM30 >> Anthem PVA 5 >> Wharfedale Reva 2
This is the setup that I use the most. The Primare shares the power amp with a Rotel RSP-1572 in a 5.1 setup with the fronts running through the Primare with home theater bypass. The Rotel is pretty musical for what it is, but I prefer the Primare for music. I don’t bother upsampling in Roon on this endpoint because the MM30 upsamples everything to 192. The Primare is the best sounding gear I’ve ever owned! On the Pi I’m running DietPi and RoonBridge.
Pi3 + HifiBerry Digi+ Pro >> Cambridge Audio Topaz SR20 >> Kef Q100
This setup is in the family room and doesn’t get used as much as I’d like. The SR20 punches above its weight in features and sound quality, and I like it a lot paired with the Q100s. Sometimes I will switch in a DAC between the HifiBerry and SR20, but honestly, it doesn’t change much. The DAC built into the SR20 is good, easily worth the entire cost of the SR20. I’m running the HifiBerry Roon image on the Pi. It’s all good, but I prefer the Allo over the HifiBerry.
Core >> Teac UD-301 >> Micca PB42X or Headphones
This is where I run Roon Server on my PC in my office. I don’t use the Miccas very often because I usually listen with headphone. I love this Teac DAC and it’s a pretty decent headphone amp, too! Headphones I use most are Sennheiser HD650, Beyerdynamic DT990, and HiFiMan HE-400i.
I just installed Roon yesterday on a 60-day trial and it’s been amazing. Can’t believe I waited so long to try it out. No doubt I’ll be buying this.
On my desktop, have a few DACs connected. Just for kicks, I tested out sending out different playback to each of them and it had no problem. Not sure I’d ever really do this on a practical basis (maybe if I had a buddy over).
- Aurilac Vega DAC to a choice of amps - Violectric V281, Woo WA22, Bottlehead Crack + Speedball. With the Audeze presets, I’ve been gone back to using my LCD-X. They’ve never sounded better.
- Chord Mojo
- ifi Micro DSD Black
On my stereo/HT system, I put together a quick and dirty Roon bridge on a spare mini PC so I could feed via HDMI since that gets me full resolution audio compared to the limitations of airplay to AppleTV. I previously had been using a popcorn hour A500 Pro to play full res audio, but the interface and navigating folders on my NAS was very clunky.
- McIntosh MX-150 to Pass Labs X150.5 to Monitor Audio PL-300 and JL Audio F113 sub.
3 Likes
Built-in DAC board SimAudio Moon 340iX
1 Like
Hmm, come to think of it, i probably use the same DAC board also.
My most common way of playing digital music is through an SOtM sMS-200 with sBooster BOTW Eco PSU into the USB input of my Simaudio Moon Nëo 430HAD headphone-/preamp/DAC. About 40% of the time i use a Bluesound Vault as transport into the optical input (or analog) of the Moon.
I use two dacs a lampi head dac and an Msb stack
They are played off of a custom three pc setup All linear
One is windows nas server with lan cards to control netwrok for other two pcs.
Roon on Main pc streamed to second pc using HQ player to dac over usb. I have a custom
Nuc to try as well.
50/50 split between MacBook Pro > USB vs MacBook Pro > Airport Express > Toslink
Testing with/without an Audioquest Jitterbug when using USB.
Also testing HQPlayer, but usually don’t use it.