Simon Moon

So, I have no hopes of getting response from Allo, but I thought I'd post this here anyway. I recently found a company called Voip.world in Germany that had USBrigder Signatures for sale at the standard price that Allo sold them for. Brand new, in aluminum cases. So, I went ahead an ordered one. It came quickly, and I had no problems configuring it. Then, the network port stopped working and the red led stays on steady. I thought maybe Volumio was having a problem, so I reloaded it in the SD card. Same problem. I contacted Voip.world through their contact page on their site several times to send a replacement, but there have been zero responses. I opened an incident with PayPal for a refund, which is still in progress. Any way, in hopes that maybe someone here has seen this problem before. Steady red led, and no network connection. Thanks!

Here is what I received.

5 years ago, I took part in a double blind listening test, where we compared 16/44.1 vs 24/192 vs quad DSD. The gear was all pretty extreme hi end (Von Schweikert Ultra 9, Pass Audio, dCS digital, etc, in a correctly treated room). The files were all from the same recording. For me, on classical recordings, it was quite easy to hear the difference between 16/44.1 and 24/192 and the DSD. All I had to do, was listen to things like: soundstage size and depth, image quality within the soundstage, and other spatial cues. The higher res files consistently had a noticeably wider and deeper soundstage, with the individual musicians being better defined in space within the soundstage. And on the 16/44.1, the musicians seemed to be a bit flatter, kind of like cardboard cutouts. I didn't have to listen to any other aspect of the reproduction. And I was well above chance in picking the hi res over the 16/44.1. I was less able to hear the difference between the 24/192 and the DSD, but it was still above chance. On studio recorded rock and pop, I could still detect differences, but it was much harder. Seems the hi res files did a better job at reproducing the natural spatial cues that come from all the musician playing at the same time, in the same acoustic space, where the recording engineer takes the effort to capture all those natural spatial cues. I am not sure what could account for the (to me), obvious improvement in reproduction of spatial cues with the hi res files. But once I heard the improvements, I could not unhear them.

Hi Kind of strange that the link goes to an image of the old Bridge, because I received a USB Bridge Signature. You could contact them to clarify. Here is my invoice from Voip.World.

This is your lucky day! I found a company, in Germany (even luckier for you!), called Voip.world, that has USB Bridge Signatures in stock! I ordered one on 4/25, and I got it on 5/2 in California. The price with shipping ran about $25 more than getting one from Allo. But I have been waiting for so long for Allo to get them back in, I was happy to pay the difference. They have them already built in black cases, but only with Volumio. Their site shows DietPi is out of stock. They also only have Sparky power supplies ($15), no Nirvana's or Shanti's. But Allo themselves have those available. Allo Audio USB Sig

Very nice review. I am also glad to see Denis Murphy's speakers in the mix. I know this phrase gest overused quite a bit, but they really are 'giant killers'. My only complaint is, can we audio enthusiasts, please, please, do away with the term 'bookshelf' speakers? Long gone are the days when people are actually putting speakers of this size on a bookshelf. 'Standmount' speakers is more accurate way these types of speakers are being used, and of course, they sound drastically better on stands.

I am not an engineer, but I am in IT at a fairly high level. It is not like I have to go through a checklist until I figure out if something is good or not. I didn't make a conscious decision to only like music with those attributes I listed previously. I just found myself, over time, being less and less interested, and more bored, with music that does not meet them. It is not even an intellectual process, for the most part, it is almost completely emotional. And let me also add, that my mind is very opened to new music. And when someone recommends something to me in some genre I usually don't listen to, I will almost always listen to it. Unlike the vast majority of people, my tastes in music were not set in my early 30's. Discovering new music is still a great joy in my life. Something Strange Happens To Your Taste In Music At Age 30

I must be the odd person out, here. But I have almost no nostalgia connected with music at all. For me, the music I listened to in my youth, either holds up on its own merit, or it doesn't. I don't care if I listened to certain bands during the best times of my youth, if they do not meet my criteria* for what I enjoy in music, I do not listen to them. That being said, there are a fair number of artists from my youth that I still listen to, but I do so because they still meet my criteria. While, there are other artists I listened to at the same period of time, that I no longer listen to. *very high level of musicianship, a high level of complexity, deep and broad emotional and/or intellectual content, avoidance of verse>chorus>bridge song format, avoidance of repetitiveness.

I have been waiting for this new version of the Bridge to be released! But before I order it, I want to verify that it is the correct device for my needs. I will feed it from hi res files stored on a local drive, not over the network. These are PCM and DSD files. The USB out from the Allo Bridge Signature will feed a Singxer U-1 to convert USB to I2S out (it also regenerates clock and adds another level of isolation), feeding the I2S on a Gustard X20 DAC. If there is another way to accomplish the above with another Allo product, that will sound better, please let me know.

Is this announcement still slated for tomorrow? I have some $$ burning a hole in my bank account waiting for this to be released.

Sounds great! Thanks for the update. Not on the website yet.

I just saw on another forum, as of June 19, the Allo USBridge Signature is "6 weeks away max". This is good news, if true, as that means only a couple of weeks from now. We can hope this is true.

Thanks for the response. If that's the case, then it makes perfect sense.

I was just getting ready to order a Sparky / Bridge, but found out they are discontinued. They are going to come out with a new product to replace it, but they are going to use a RPI instead of the Sparky. This sounds like a mistake to me, and the Allo website actually agrees. They state the following about the disadvantage with using a RPI: "First, laptops are noisy... very noisy. On USB we usually see spikes at 100mV of noise. That will have an impact on sound system. How about RPI? RPIs are great and very energy efficient, but on USB they have 2 major flaws. First is that bandwidth is shared between the 2 USB ports (so in fact there is only one USB), and second is that ethernet is also shared on same bus! Of course, you also have the noise on USB at about 60mV. Maybe Sparky? The 2 USB ports (next to the ethernet port) share one input to the CPU (split by a hub). Noise on USB bus is about 27mV (pretty good) and ethernet is completely apart (bus is not shared). So it's ok, but not great." So, could someone please explain Allo's thought process here?

That's an good option, and cheaper! What about compatibility with the Gustard X20? The Singxer has switches to change output depending on the DAC it is being connected to.