Allo Sparky USBridge

[allo.com]

11 hours ago, jtwrace said:

Thanks.  Downloaded Etcher and get the same result.  Nada. I've done it the Allo way using their recommended software and now this.  Nothing.  I don't get it.  

Hi jtw,

 

 please wait a few days for us to finish our testing and we will send you a new flashed eMMC

[jtwrace]

7 hours ago, H-Man said:

Well it is at least booting something so something got flashed on the eMMC. Does it accept keyboard input? 

Wait a second.  I'm booted into the system with a keyboard now.  Do I need do something else? If so, what?

[jtwrace]

27 minutes ago, jtwrace said:

Wait a second.  I'm booted into the system with a keyboard now.  Do I need do something else? If so, what?

OK, I got it working now.  The directions I have don't say anything about installing the software once you flash the card so I thought it was all done and ready to go.  

 

DSD256 works but with a terrible tone in the background but I'm sure this will be solved in the coming release.  In the meantime I have USBridge working.  Finally.  

[allo.com]

Yeap I heard that tone...not musical at all.

 

  Tomorrow our testing team is back online and will start debugging .

[jtwrace]

10 hours ago, allo.com said:

Yeap I heard that tone...not musical at all.

 

  Tomorrow our testing team is back online and will start debugging .

Great!  Look forward to the new release!  

[allo.com]

We are working and testing all this time.

 

  We identified the root cause of ethernet problems (dsd 256) and higher.

 

We are solving some problem with specific DAC and DSD 256.

 

  Before end of the week we will have an update .

 

 

[Mike Pinkerton]

9 hours ago, allo.com said:

We are working and testing all this time.

 

  We identified the root cause of ethernet problems (dsd 256) and higher.

 

We are solving some problem with specific DAC and DSD 256.

 

  Before end of the week we will have an update .

 

 

 

Have you figured out the dropping off the network issue?

[jtwrace]

44 minutes ago, Mike Pinkerton said:

 

Have you figured out the dropping off the network issue?

Do you still have the issue with v154?  

[Kelly]

10 hours ago, Mike Pinkerton said:

 

Have you figured out the dropping off the network issue?

I plugged mine in for the first time a week ago. It has been up continuously  with no ethernet issues at all. Not sure what software version it shipped with. I am using it only for native rate Roon playback.

[guiltyboxswapper]

My 2nd USBridge arrived with v154 (upgraded to latest).  Contains the Amanero patches.  To my surprise it worked out of the box with Roon bridge at DSD 512 rates no problem.  Didn't need to add a USB ethernet adapter, either.

 

There's still a few glitches once in a while switching tracks, but that was happening without the USBridge, as Amanero have a few firmware quirks to work out when its in Native DSD mode.

 

However, not managed to get HQPlayer at DSD 512 rates working, and that's despite the ethernet adapter not being saturated, nor the CPU.  Still, Roon is close enough these days.  Any suggestions here?   Will test at 256 rates later.

 

Excellent sound quality otherwise straight out of the box.  Using ifi ipower for Sparky, and Aqvox USB power supply for USBridge.

[volpone]

30 minutes ago, guiltyboxswapper said:

My 2nd USBridge arrived with v154 (upgraded to latest).  Contains the Amanero patches.  To my surprise it worked out of the box with Roon bridge at DSD 512 rates no problem.  Didn't need to add a USB ethernet adapter, either.

 

There's still a few glitches once in a while switching tracks, but that was happening without the USBridge, as Amanero have a few firmware quirks to work out when its in Native DSD mode.

 

Interesting !

So you succeed with ROON DSP >  DSD 512 upsampling > USBridge (Dietpi 154) > T+A DAC8DSD (native DSD) ?

- What is your DAC8DSD Amanero USB FW version ?

- How do you manage to update DAC8DSD Firmware ?

 

Quote

However, not managed to get HQPlayer at DSD 512 rates working, and that's despite the ethernet adapter not being saturated, nor the CPU.  Still, Roon is close enough these days.  Any suggestions here?   Will test at 256 rates later.

 

Did you asked @Miska ?

[guiltyboxswapper]

4 hours ago, volpone said:

 

Interesting !

So you succeed with ROON DSP >  DSD 512 upsampling > USBridge (Dietpi 154) > T+A DAC8DSD (native DSD) ?

- What is your DAC8DSD Amanero USB FW version ?

- How do you manage to update DAC8DSD Firmware ?

 

 

Did you asked @Miska ?

 

I'm not using the T+A, but an LKS 004.  It's possible to re-flash the T+A with the latest Amanero firmware, but you'll lose Windows support for now, and the firmware is currently has the odd glitch but otherwise stable.  

 

I think there's a PDF in the T+A thread how to reset the Amanero if you really wanted to try it.  

 

Not mentioned it to @Miska yet as I wasn't sure if its NAA or DietPi at this point, wanted to wait for latest update to DietPi that Allo have mentioned before drawing others in.  Now thinking about it, it could be CPU bound to a single core... I'll investigate further.

[guiltyboxswapper]

HQPlayer in DSD 256 mode, with Allo works fine with the Amanero.  Not as responsive as Roon, but it works.

[volpone]

6 hours ago, guiltyboxswapper said:

I'm not using the T+A, but an LKS 004.  It's possible to re-flash the T+A with the latest Amanero firmware, but you'll lose Windows support for now, and the firmware is currently has the odd glitch but otherwise stable.  

 

I think there's a PDF in the T+A thread how to reset the Amanero if you really wanted to try it.  

 

Not mentioned it to @Miska yet as I wasn't sure if its NAA or DietPi at this point, wanted to wait for latest update to DietPi that Allo have mentioned before drawing others in.  Now thinking about it, it could be CPU bound to a single core... I'll investigate further.

 

OK, thank's.
For DAC8DSD i've to wait a little more for Amanero and T+A to release new FW. I hope we are close.
However good news if you note Sparky+USBridge already play DSD512 correctly with RoonBridge. i was afraid about Ethernet bandwith or other HW issue. 

[volpone]

2 hours ago, guiltyboxswapper said:

HQPlayer in DSD 256 mode, with Allo works fine with the Amanero.  Not as responsive as Roon, but it works.

So good news if NAA is working too but i hope native DSD 512 with ROON and HQP.
About ROON + HQP lack of responsiveness (2 or 3 sec latency) it is not at all an Allo or Diepi issue. 

[Mike Pinkerton]

On 9/6/2017 at 9:26 PM, jtwrace said:

Do you still have the issue with v154?  

 

I don't yet have one of these, but won't buy one until the network issues are resolved. As I said further up in the thread, I returned an Altair for the same type of  issue, and it makes me very nervous buying with known network problems. The RaspPi in the same configuration works perfectly. 

[H-Man]

6 hours ago, Mike Pinkerton said:

 

I don't yet have one of these, but won't buy one until the network issues are resolved. As I said further up in the thread, I returned an Altair for the same type of  issue, and it makes me very nervous buying with known network problems. The RaspPi in the same configuration works perfectly. 

Lets not draw conclusions yet. I had problems after the upgrade and bugs have been identified but it is way too early to make any conclusions. Lets see what Allo and DietPi comes up with in terms of a fix first.  

[allo.com]

Ok time for some updates.

 

  Ethernet problem was traced back to phy chip. Its sensitive to network noise (?!). Nothing we can do about it. We have 4 setups , on some setups it works up to 70Mbs , on some networks up to 40Mbs.

 

So at this moment we recommend (native ethernet) to use DSD 128 / Pcm 384Khz. Its stable.

 

So what we did is to use a Ethernet to USB dongle (that we will provide for free for all our USBridge customers) Gb ethernet to USB2/3

 

  On the USB 2.0 (remember the USBs buses are separated) we reached 260Mbs stable. Plugged into USB 3.0 we reached 610Mbs, rock solid.

 

Using the Ethernet to USB dongle , 256 DSD has no issues whatsoever .  512 should have no problems but we did not fully test. CPU usage  is low , logs show 0 errors.

 

    Regarding the new image , we are advancing as fast as we can. The new GUI is coming up nicely , Dan (the great) is implementing all the features needed . We will make sure that software is updated regularly .(with auto update function)

 

Reports are coming in regarding the DSD native compatibility . Most Dacs work well (native ethernet excluded)  , Mytek Brooklyn has a problem that we are presently debugging .

 

Was a long week, thx you all for your patience.

 

 

[Mike Pinkerton]

Thank you for your frequent updates and transparency! 

[guiltyboxswapper]

I have just managed to get HQPlayer's NAA streaming at 512 rates by setting the CPU governor to performance (which basically keeps the CPU at its max clock).  Once in a while it blips (every few mins), but works.  So it appears the SoC is borderline capacity wise at 512 with NAA at least.    As mentioned RoonBridge has no problems at 512.

 

Wonder if  @Miska could look into any optimisations for the ARM build at all?  I may experiment with a mild overclock to see if that alleviates it.

[allo.com]

Are you on native ethernet ? Can you check the CPU usage at 512 ? In our experiments , its not about the CPU usage (its low) but rather the bottleneck was at native ethernet. Once we moved to Ethernet/USB , we have full capability. 512 seems to run without problems  ( but need more testing)

[hurka]

Sparky+smps the best !!!!!

usbbridge sound flat why?

[hurka]

DARK and flat

 

[hurka]

I'm using R2R 12 rail ultracapacitor dac,maybe   that's why??

[guiltyboxswapper]

4 hours ago, allo.com said:

Are you on native ethernet ? Can you check the CPU usage at 512 ? In our experiments , its not about the CPU usage (its low) but rather the bottleneck was at native ethernet. Once we moved to Ethernet/USB , we have full capability. 512 seems to run without problems  ( but need more testing)

 

DSD 512 + Roon with native ethernet works fine.  Stable 50mbit/s~ traffic.

 

It's primarily HQPlayer NAA, but as mentioned above with cpu governer set to performance it's almost there, odd glitch.  That's with and without USB ethernet adapter.  Often stable 50mbit/s~ traffic, but when its struggling, you can clearly see ethernet traffic dipping.  

 

Again HQPlayer does not appear CPU bound overall (infact, renice'd process to -10 to assist), but its possible that NAA key threads are getting close to the bounds of a single CPU core hence the odd glitch.

 

Let me know if you'd like me to try anything.  For 256 DSD via NAA its perfectly fine.