Allo Digione

[Bikutoru]

 Allo Digione

 

What is it?

It is a transport for RaspberryPi 3 with Coax/BNC out. If your dac supports this input, read on.

 

There are two flavours:

One is a PI-hat https://allo.com/sparky/digione.html

Another one a complete streamer/player assembled: https://allo.com/sparky/digione-player.html

 

Darko's review:

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2017/08/allos-digione-pulls-five-star-sound-quality-from-the-raspberry-pi/

Volumio's recent review:

https://volumio.org/allo-digione-player-probably-best-volumio-based-spdif-transport/

 

Personal take:

My dac happen to have galvanically isolated usb, so it sounds heavenly as it is. But sometimes RaspberryPi has been a bottleneck as these usb buffer overran/underran clipping noises leaking into the chain. I decided to try a DIGIONE, to see if it would illuminate this problem. Yes, RPI's usb was the culprit. After installing the DIGIONE on my RPI and selecting I2S Digione in Volumio config, my system sounds as good as before, without the usb induced artifacts.

[George Hincapie]

There is a thread for this already. In the Server forum.

[zacho]

Would love this discussion to continue as there seems to be a lot of activity with the USBridge but not as much with the digione player. 

Am currently considering getting the Digione Player but was wondering what factors I should be considering when choosing between Volumio and Diet-pi. On the USBridge discussion, there seems to be a favorable consensus for the Diet-Pi. Any reason why I should choose one over the other?

[smith123]

1 hour ago, zacho said:

Would love this discussion to continue as there seems to be a lot of activity with the USBridge but not as much with the digione player. 

Am currently considering getting the Digione Player but was wondering what factors I should be considering when choosing between Volumio and Diet-pi. On the USBridge discussion, there seems to be a favorable consensus for the Diet-Pi. Any reason why I should choose one over the other?

 

I'm interested in the same things. I've also done a quick search and can't find that much info. How good is Digione player compared to other alternatives for example? Is it easy to use? Is it possible to just connect a external l hard drive with music and start playing music (with a DAC of course)? 

 

It seems like perfect product for me and I almost bought one tonight. I would appropriate some more info though. 

[jventer]

There is not that much info around re digione, but basically the digione is something that works with a Raspberri Pi. 

Digione is just a 'HAT - that is something that takes the music from the Pi and put it in a format so that you can connect via spdif to your dac.

The Players are for the Pi.

Moode player is another alternative.

I am playing music with mine from usb drive as well as network.

[steklo]

I'm also a bit astonished to see the Digione gets so much less attention than USBridge.

 

As for players picoreplayer would be another interesting alternative which is an endpoint for Logitech Media Server and minimizes processor activities on the Pi  to the minimum .

 

I'd be interested to hear how Digione on the Pi compares to e.g. Pi2Design 502DAC and also to a high quality USB/SPDIF converter like Schiit Eitr? And how much the quality of the Pi's PSU influences the performance?

[Bikutoru]

After a few weeks with it, I can confirm that Digione is a very nice PI-HAT. The base appeared to be a bit bloated for a few days, but eventually settled, first I thought, I'd have to go back to usb, but it seems to be just fine after a burn in.

No hiccups in audio, unlike direct usb out of PI, those were rare but annoying.

 

As a PI system software, I have tried Moode and Rune, but not the diet-pi. Settled on Volumio because it was the easiest for me to configure and the one I experienced the least problems with. None of them, including Volumio were able to index all of my NAS library, each one crashes on some metadata and hunting all the files within over 2Tb of data... I tried but failed.

I copy flac and dsd to internal storage, could attache a drive directly to PI, but my preferred way - pushing to it though AirPlay.

 

Digione has two outputs - BNC and regular coax, both of them are active at the same time. So, if you need to test two different dacs with coax input, it is easy and I've done it, so I know it works.

 

[allo.com]

Hi,

 

 we highly recommend the DietPI image...give it a try.

[Bikutoru]

On 10/16/2017 at 12:08 PM, allo.com said:

Hi,

 

 we highly recommend the DietPI image...give it a try.

I do not see any way to connect a NAS drive share in DietPi. It looks only like local content, am I wrong?

[Daniel Knight]

11 hours ago, Bikutoru said:

I do not see any way to connect a NAS drive share in DietPi. It looks only like local content, am I wrong?

Hi,

You can add a NAS share using term/ssh and DietPi-Config. Simply run the following command:

dietpi-config

- 8  Network Options: NAS/Misc

- Samba Client

 

Once setup, drive is mounted to:

/mnt/samba

[Bikutoru]

diet-config Samba doesn't seem to work. I also tried to mount it manually, all I get is this error: 'mount error(6): No such device or address'. Volumio mounts a samba share from my nas without any problems.

[Daniel Knight]

17 hours ago, Bikutoru said:

diet-config Samba doesn't seem to work. I also tried to mount it manually, all I get is this error: 'mount error(6): No such device or address'. Volumio mounts a samba share from my nas without any problems.

Hi,

 

Thanks for the report:
We've tested various NAS devices using DietPi-Config mounting system. We are unable to replicate the issue you experienced.

 

Quote

'mount error(6): No such device or address'

Please can you verify the NAS credentials are entered correctly. The above error indicates a possible incorrect IP address/Computer name used.

If problems persist, please:
- Let us know the NAS device used (eg: model)
- Run dietpi-bugreport, to send us a bug report and system logs.
We can then investigate.

[Bikutoru]

Credentials are correct I tried to ssh to my NAS from dietpi, no problem there.

 

sent the report - reference code: b48cc28e-782d-47f5-b6b3-31befdf97a61-0

My NAS is QNAP TS-259 Pro+

 

[Bikutoru]

After an hour, I got it to mount. Firstly, it doesn't like directories with spaces(I could do it in Volumio). Secondly, once I dropped a few directories off the end of the path, I had to remove the '/share' from the beginning of the path and it finally works.

Went to O!MPD and updated some of the directories, next problem - most of my music in lossless AAC. In O!MPD the show as 

File format: 0bit - 0kHz

and do not play

[Daniel Knight]

11 hours ago, Bikutoru said:

After an hour, I got it to mount. Firstly, it doesn't like directories with spaces(I could do it in Volumio). Secondly, once I dropped a few directories off the end of the path, I had to remove the '/share' from the beginning of the path and it finally works.

Went to O!MPD and updated some of the directories, next problem - most of my music in lossless AAC. In O!MPD the show as 

File format: 0bit - 0kHz

and do not play

Hi,

Thanks for the reports.

We'll investigate both these issues, i've generated tickets below:
Samba = https://github.com/Fourdee/DietPi/issues/1201
O!MPD AAC = https://github.com/Fourdee/DietPi/issues/1202

[zacho]

Does the DigiOne support Spotify Connect and Jriver?

[Daniel Knight]

21 minutes ago, zacho said:

Does the DigiOne support Spotify Connect and Jriver?

We are looking to implement Raspotify:
https://github.com/Fourdee/DietPi/issues/1189

GMRender as DLNA Audio endpoint is already implemented (Similar to JRiver, for audio).

[Daniel Knight]

16 hours ago, Bikutoru said:

 

Went to O!MPD and updated some of the directories, next problem - most of my music in lossless AAC. In O!MPD the show as 

File format: 0bit - 0kHz

and do not play

Hi,

We believe this is a bug within O!MPD, which is outside of our control:
https://github.com/Fourdee/DietPi/issues/1202#issuecomment-338276936

As a workaround, you can symlink the Samba location into /mnt/dietpi_userdata/Music.
You'll need SSH/Term access to achieve this, run the following command, after changing PATH_TO_MUSIC as needed

ln -sf /mnt/samba/PATH_TO_MUSIC /mnt/dietpi_userdata/Music/samba

 

Example, my music is in /mnt/samba/Dans_Music

 

ln -sf /mnt/samba/Dans_Music /mnt/dietpi_userdata/Music/samba

 

Once completed, update the library in O!MPD using /mnt/dietpi_userdata/Music as the location, playback should then be functional.

 

[Bikutoru]

How do I stop O!MPD updating....? It seem to be running non-stop, just adds a few more albums with 0bit - 0kHz, utterly useless!

 

I did the soft link and can navigate to /mnt/dietpi_userdata/Music/samba in O!MPD and play individual files or add a folder to playlist. Not the most convenient way but it works. I wish there was a way to clear the whole play list and not removing tracks one by one.

 

Is there anyway I could control it not through the web page?  May be some other piece of software that can do local indexing of the samba share and playback, but remote navigation and control? Or access of a Minim server on my NAS, but local playback on dietpi?

[nbpf]

I have tested the Allo DigiOne on a minimal Raspbian stretch headless installation running MinimServer and upmpdcli. My music collection is on a 1TB external HDD connected via USB to the Raspberry Pi 3 + DigiOne combo. In this setup, the DigiOne works flawlessly and sounds very good. I have compared it to my M2Tech HiFace Evo connected to a fitPC3 also running MinimServer and upmpdcli under Debian stretch and with the same HDD connected via USB. Both devices were feeding a Naim DAC using a Naim DC1 BNC-BNC cable. To my ears, the M2Tech (powered by a Teddy Pardo PSU) sounds slightly more natural and refined than the DigiOne. On the other hand, the DigiOne offers a slightly more involving presentation. For owners of DACs with SPDIF inputs the Allo DigiOne is a very straightforward solution and a great value. Best, nbpf 

[zacho]

Review by Hansbeekhuyzen

Very interesting regarding how the supplied SMPS affected his other components.

Aside from that, it's a wonderful review that gives us some perspective on it's relative performance vs the more popular SOTM SMS-200. Then again, one is a usb streamer while the digione is an SPDIF player. 

[nbpf]

@zachoVery nice, thanks! I have meanwhile made some more comparisons and, in my setup, the main problem with the DigiOne is that violins and, more generally, high pitched notes tend to sound too aggressive. With the M2Tech, the presentation is more fluid, more natural and, finally, less fatiguing. Still, I believe the DigiOne is a great value.

 

No matter what the differences are, I would be interested in understanding where they come from. What makes the violins with the DigiOne sound more edgy than with the M2Tech? Is it something that can be measured? Can these differences be attributed to which features of the signal? Thanks, nbpf

[George Hincapie]

Awful review by Hans. Should have used a proper LPSU with it. I disagree with his conclusions in terms of comparative SQ as well.

[jventer]

Great review, put things into context.

[nbpf]

8 hours ago, George Hincapie said:

Awful review by Hans. Should have used a proper LPSU with it. I disagree with his conclusions in terms of comparative SQ as well.

Could you please elaborate in a little bit more detailed fashion on what you disagree? I do not tend to watch video reviews, I prefer very much written reports. Still, I could not find obvious flaws in the way Hans compares the DigiOne to other devices. I might be missing something, of course. Thanks, nbpf