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jxo

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  1. A new Pontus DAC arrived several days ago as did one of those I2S converter boxes off EBay. Dusted off my old Oppo 95. Ran the second hdmi out to the converter then from there to the I2S input of the Pontus. Bingo, it worked. Cold and without any break in at all, sounds very nice. Will be comparing it in more depth to my old ModWright Sony SACD player (totally tricked out by Dan) but on its third laser. Thanks George, this is a fabulous development. Now I will have to build out the server and run Roon to the Pontus as well.
  2. Did you ever succeed in getting an I2S signal to your DAC? I assume over hdmi. Can you output I2S from the Allo USBridge over hdmi?
  3. Chris: thanks much for the review and look forward to hearing more about your experience with the DAC. I can offer another endorsement of Vinshine Audio and Alvin. I have been on the DAC sidelines for quite a while but based on all the positive and credible feedback I pulled the trigger and will be getting one of his DACs. Alvin has been extremely responsive, knowledgeable and helpful. Now I can torture myself figuring out how best to network TBs of music files to this thing. Jim
  4. My DAC has an I2S input on hdmi. Is there a HAT or other device that would let me output I2S on hdmi from the Allo USBridge?
  5. “You can connect a HD to USBridge and Digione player (with RPI) ...but we do not recommend it because of noise it will introduce in clean systems . Keep your HD on ethernet with a RPI4.” thanks much for the feedback. This was one of my foundational questions. question on sound quality of my network system. I am learning, finally, of the SQ advantages of Ethernet streaming vs. my dinosaur HDDs and computer-based digital transport. my internet arrives in my home on my third floor. Modem is on third floor with router number one located there connected to the modem on a short run of Cat6. I have 115ft of Cat6 running from Router One down to the first floor where router number two is daisy chained and located. Router two is in my audio listening room about 15 ft from the equipment rack and DAC. I prefer to locate a server/Nucleus clone/NAS drive on the third floor connected to router One. Should I expect any SQ impact of streaming files through one router, 115 ft of cat6, to a second router and another 15 of cat 6 to the Allo as the endpoint? the less preferred option would be to install the NAS streamer device on router 2. Is either a clearly superior option from a SQ perspective?
  6. Thanks much. The BlueSound support team confirmed just that. Rules that out.
  7. It is time to move away from my PC, Mac mini and laptop solutions (with JRiver) for transporting high rez files to my DAC. Primary goal is to directly connect to a 2TB hard drive (with high rez files) and output the best SQ digital stream to my DAC. So integrated DAC not needed, don't need streaming service support, do not need to transport files over my network (via NAS or otherwise) unless doing so is superior to a direct USB-connected hard drive. So many of the streamer/server/transports have more features than what I need. SQ is 99% of my priority. Under consideration, in current order of preference: 1. Allo USBridge Sig Player with DigiOne (for SPDIF outputs) with their LPS 2. BlueSound Node 2i (primarily b/c its cheap, may have better App and software player support but I do not get a good sense of how these streamers compare as simple digital transports) My preliminary research has me leaning in favor of the Allo-- on paper, it appears that it might be the superior digital transport device (for a number of reasons, LPS being one of them) to the Node 2i and perhaps similar streaming products. I also read that the Node 2i may have some trouble handling DSD files. Any views on the above or other suggestions or recommendations for a server/transport would be greatly appreciated.
  8. Hope my stupid questions help others looking for answers that I am sure are addressed elsewhere in this forum. Needs: I am looking to add a server/streamer/transport device to my high end audio system to replace the old laptop with JRiver currently in use. I am ripping hundreds of SACDs and would like to feed these DSD files (and many more lossless CD rips and high rez files) to my DAC (via USB, SPDIF or I2S). Sound quality is of most importance to me. I am NOT presently using any high rez streaming services (I'm a dinosaur) and do NOT need network storage of the music files so I am OK putting my music files on a drive (SSD or otherwise) attached directly to the server/digital transport device, in turn, connected to my DAC (similar to the laptop setup previously). Am not currently a Roon user but that could change and HiRez streaming may also become relevant once I take my head out of the sand. As between: 1. The USBridge Signature Player (with DigiOne Sig and Shanti) and 2. The DigiOne Signature Player (with Shanti), is one clearly appropriate/superior to the other given my needs? I assume the USBridge with the DigiOne is the way to go but want to confirm. I see no way to connect a USB hard drive to the DigiOne alone but wanted to confirm. I assume the Allo RPI solutions will be superior to the laptop-- which I never warmed up to. Can I attach a hard drive directly to one of or both of these Allo devices? As mentioned, I see no way to do this with the DigiOne player alone. Is sound quality impacted by whether the music files are on an attached USB hard drive or via a network (NAS) drive? I would consider migrating to network storage as long as the SQ is maintained. Is one of the OS/player choices (Volumio vs. Moode) better for sound quality? Playback Control: Do I need to attach a WiFi dongle to the USBridge or the DigiOne so I can use an iPhone or iPad to control the software player/OS?
  9. You should know! I recall a review of this D.BOB box a few months back in my favorite mag. thanks much
  10. In case anyone is interested for comparison sake. Design detail of the D.BOB: "The D.BOB design is centered around two chips made by Lattice Semiconductor. The Sil9533 Port Processor is the main HDMI decoder chip, which extracts PCM audio data from the HDMI datastream and sends it out via S/PDIF [not HDMI or USB]. The HDMI pass-through functions are also supported by this chip. But, the Sil9533 does not support DSD. [Instead,] the DSD datastream is extracted from HDMI, and encoded as DoP, by a Lattice LCMX02-1200HC Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)."
  11. Hugo: thanks much. To the contrary, clouds are lifting. You confirmed some of my instincts (as technically un-based as they are). It would also imply that the ChiFi box is outputting differently from the GeerFab DBOB. Important to get clarity here otherwise folks may be making some expensive mistakes in choosing equipment to solve this SACD playback conundrum. I have some older DACs that support various DSD formats; curious which ones will work and those that won't with the mystery Chinese puzzle box that came last week. But I am definitely looking at these Denafrips DACs based on the trusted feedback here. thanks again, Jim
  12. All this work is much appreciated. I am still unclear whether one MUST use an I2S (IIS) capable DAC in order to utilize the ChiFi converter box to get the best SACD playback SQ. @hgaggioni reported that he was able to send DSD signals to his Pontus over coax, optical and HDMI/I2s. Is DSD over coax and optical still using an I2S protocol necessitating the use of an I2S DAC? If that is non-sensical, apologies. The only necessary I2S pieces of this data flow maybe the output from the player over hdmi and the input of the converter box and the hdmi output of the converter box. If so, this box would work similar to the DBOB with the additional digital output option of HDMI (I2S?). DBOB site says: "External DAC must accept DSD via the DoP protocol [DSD over PCM] through S/PDIF Coax (preferable) or Toslink inputs." I.E., I2S DACs are not necessary. Is the converter box sending DSD via different protocols depending on the output option used? DoP via coax and optical and DSD via another protocol (some references out there to "raw" DSD), I2S or otherwise, on the HDMI output? If they are indeed different, is one better or preferred? As GeerFab "prefers" coax? I just want to know which DACs to start putting on the short list to purchase-- in addition to the Pontus. If I2S is strictly needed, the list gets very short.
  13. Some of the listings for these boxes refer to Board B versions implying an update. Thanks for all your work on this George.
  14. This may have been referenced previously, but on point: https://www.audio “science” review/forum/index.php?threads/study-is-i²s-interface-better-for-dacs-than-s-pdif-or-usb.7105/
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