Allo Signature Digione; anyone tried it?

[adamdea]

5 minutes ago, nbpf said:

Interesting! I apologize for my ignorance but who is Amir? Could you please post a pointer to the relevant URLs? Thanks, nbpf

He is the proprietor of audioscience review whose testing regime you were impugning

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-measurements-of-allo-digione-signature-and-diyinhk-pro3z.4660/page-3#post-108867

[nbpf]

2 minutes ago, adamdea said:

He is the proprietor of audioscience review whose testing regime you were impugning

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-measurements-of-allo-digione-signature-and-diyinhk-pro3z.4660/page-3#post-108867

Great, thanks! Let's then hope to see detailed measurements for the DigiOne Signature, for the DigiOne and perhaps for other I2S to S/PDIF convertors. I have meanwhile ordered a DigiOne Signature and I should be able to compare it to my current DigiOne by the end of next week. I am not planning to make any measurements, though. Best, nbpf  

[jcbenten]

32 minutes ago, nbpf said:

Interesting! I apologize for my ignorance but who is Amir? Could you please post a pointer to the relevant URLs? Thanks, nbpf

Www.Audiosciencereview.com

[nbpf]

On 10/17/2018 at 4:33 PM, jcbenten said:

Www.Audiosciencereview.com

Thanks, I am looking forward to see the new results. As I wrote, I cannot make any sense of the results published so far. Thus, just to make an example, the legend in the first diagram says "Allo Signature RCA out (new peak @ 12kHZ)". What does here "new" refer to? Do we have old measurements to compare the new ones to? I am not arguing that the measurement are flawed, just that they are meaningless to me. Perhaps it is just my ignorance or it is the language used to comment the measurements that escapes my understanding. 

[jcbenten]

26 minutes ago, nbpf said:

Thanks, I am looking forward to see the new results. As I wrote, I cannot make any sense of the results published so far. Thus, just to make an example, the legend in the first diagram says "Allo Signature RCA out (new peak @ 12kHZ)". What does here "new" refer to? Do we have old measurements to compare the new ones to? I am not arguing that the measurement are flawed, just that they are meaningless to me. Perhaps it is just my ignorance or it is the language used to comment the measurements that escapes my understanding. 

Amir measure the base spikes of his analyzer APX555.  The "new" peak he refers to of the DigiOne is a spike he did not see in his analyzer.  That  spike @ 12kHz, is generated by the DigiOne all by itself.

[nbpf]

1 minute ago, jcbenten said:

Amir measure the base spikes of his analyzer APX555.  The "new" peak he refers to of the DigiOne is a spike he did not see in his analyzer.  That  spike @ 12kHz, is generated by the DigiOne all by itself.

I understand, thanks. It would be nice to see how the DigiOne Signature and the DXIO Pro3Z compare to a reference interface. Where do these "new" or "additional" peaks come from? What is their possible impact on sound quality? What do these measurements actually tell us? For owners of the standard DigiOne the most interesting question is of course how the DigiOne Signature measurements compare to those of the DigiOne. Hopefully the upcoming extended review will provide some answers to these questions.

[jcbenten]

4 minutes ago, nbpf said:

I understand, thanks. It would be nice to see how the DigiOne Signature and the DXIO Pro3Z compare to a reference interface. Where do these "new" or "additional" peaks come from? What is their possible impact on sound quality? What do these measurements actually tell us? For owners of the standard DigiOne the most interesting question is of course how the DigiOne Signature measurements compare to those of the DigiOne. Hopefully the upcoming extended review will provide some answers to these questions.

All good questions for that forum.  Probably would generate a lot of discussion.

 

Do note that the majority of the tested equipment is sent in on loaner from the forum members.  Amir purchases a few himself, gets a few mfr loaners (but appears to happening more frequently - some mfrs are actually looking to improve) but most are from readers.  The goal appears to be to find inexpensive equipment that measures very good to exceptional.  Subjective analysis is secondary or even tertiary.  A "reference" would be the best measured product to date and not necessarily a higher dollar unit or something that is considered "reference" by a magazine reviewer.  

[nbpf]

9 hours ago, jcbenten said:

All good questions for that forum.  Probably would generate a lot of discussion.

 

Do note that the majority of the tested equipment is sent in on loaner from the forum members.  Amir purchases a few himself, gets a few mfr loaners (but appears to happening more frequently - some mfrs are actually looking to improve) but most are from readers.  The goal appears to be to find inexpensive equipment that measures very good to exceptional.  Subjective analysis is secondary or even tertiary.  A "reference" would be the best measured product to date and not necessarily a higher dollar unit or something that is considered "reference" by a magazine reviewer.  

I very much appreciate the focus on measurements and the fact that Amir pays attention to products that are often disregarded in magazine reviews. I am not interested in subjective analyses and I find Amir's approach refreshing. That said, I have found the specific review to be lacking: the annotations ("new", "additional", etc.) are confusing and essential background information (lower peaks better than higher peaks, etc.) is missing. I have not checked other reviews on audiosciencereview.com. In order to put the measurements of a given device in a perspective, it would be very helpful to display them against the measurements of one or more reference devices. These do not need to belong to the same price class of the device under investigation. They can be 1000 times more expensive or cheaper, it does not matter.  

[Istvan]

Hello,

 

I was sceptical about importance of a good streamer, but ordered the Digione Signature for a "cheap" try, with voucher code "Roon10" there was about 10% discount. It arrived two days ago and after some setup I connected it to my Chord QuTest via BNC DigiCoax today. (Vincent amp, Audio Physic speakers, Chord cables in the chain.) Power supply for the clean side was ordered from Audiophonics for 89EUR what Tibor suggested, standard PS for the dirty side. 

 

Well, this streamer sounds amazing, I cancelled my evening tasks to re-listen my favourites today. That timing, rhythmicity, dept, naturality of vocals... I have never heard before. I'm just sitting and listening music with big enthusiasm, my English too simple to express what I feel. For its price it is a best buy, a pretty couple with Chord QuTest. Easy to control by Android apps, like Squeezer. Oh and it can run Chrome or Mine sweeper on RPI board if you are fed up with music listening.  

 

Cheers   

[TiborM]

And it will get better over time, give it 200 hours or more :)

[TiborM]

 

Any more questions? ?

[nbpf]

46 minutes ago, TiborM said:

Any more questions? ?

Well, an obvious one is what can we learn from the review apart from the fact that we should be careful when inserting the batteries in the battery pack. The answer is very little. I think it's time to put a stop to video reviews, in most cases, they are just a waste of time.     

[keihin]

I'm currently working on a build that will use an RPi, DigiOne Signature and the Squeezebox emulator OS/software from the PiCorePlayer project.  Will use a dedicated LPS for the clean supply.  BNC-to-BNC into Schiit Gungnir Multibit, then balanced output into Rogue Pharaoh integrated amplifier.  Will post build and listening notes here once it all comes together.

[firedog]

also a comparison of the DigiOne and Signature at audiostream.com now.

 

[nbpf]

50 minutes ago, firedog said:

also a comparison of the DigiOne and Signature at audiostream.com now.

 

Thanks, this is the first review of the DigiOne Signature that makes sense to me, with meaningful comparisons with the standard DigiOne and with a similarly priced USB to S/PDIF interface. It would be nice to see comparisons with more expensive products like the new Innuos Zen mini mk3 and the dCS Network Bridge at a certain point. For perspective DigiOne Signature owners, a list of power supplies that can be recommended for powering the clean side of the DigiOne Signature would be very useful.

[davide256]

5 hours ago, nbpf said:

Thanks, this is the first review of the DigiOne Signature that makes sense to me, with meaningful comparisons with the standard DigiOne and with a similarly priced USB to S/PDIF interface. It would be nice to see comparisons with more expensive products like the new Innuos Zen mini mk3 and the dCS Network Bridge at a certain point. For perspective DigiOne Signature owners, a list of power supplies that can be recommended for powering the clean side of the DigiOne Signature would be very useful.

I doubt the DIgione Signature can get you into that league, would expect comparisons to renderers under $1000. Will be playing around  with Audiolinux today for RPI 3, curious to see if it addresses any of the issues I heard with the original Digione.

[nbpf]

6 hours ago, davide256 said:

I doubt the DIgione Signature can get you into that league, would expect comparisons to renderers under $1000. Will be playing around  with Audiolinux today for RPI 3, curious to see if it addresses any of the issues I heard with the original Digione.

I guess you are right but still it would be interesting to assess the differences. Also a comparison between the Zen mini mk3 (about $1000) and the dCS Network Bridge (about $4000) would be interesting in my view.

 

I am looking forward to read your findings, I understand that AudioLinux for RPi is not based on a real-time kernel. This is probaböly irrelevant: I have compared a realtime kernel for my minimal Raspbian distribution to the standard kernel and I could not hear any obvious differences in my system. Also, neither my real-time kernel nor the one that comes with AudioLinux can be run from memory on RPi devices. 

 

One thing that I find very annoying with the DigiOne Signature is that the system keeps on throwing under voltage exceptions. This is not a problem of too weak power supplies. I am powering the dirty side of the DS with a JS-2 but the same problem also appeared when powering the dirty side of the DS with a ifi 5V/2.5A or with Allo's PSU. I suspect it is a design flaw of the DS itself. 

[the_bat]

6 hours ago, davide256 said:

I doubt the DIgione Signature can get you into that league, would expect comparisons to renderers under $1000. Will be playing around  with Audiolinux today for RPI 3, curious to see if it addresses any of the issues I heard with the original Digione.

 

You might doubt it, but Darko and I both think it betters the Aries femto at $1,500+.

[Istvan]

12 hours ago, nbpf said:

...One thing that I find very annoying with the DigiOne Signature is that the system keeps on throwing under voltage exceptions. This is not a problem of too weak power supplies. I am powering the dirty side of the DS with a JS-2 but the same problem also appeared when powering the dirty side of the DS with a ifi 5V/2.5A or with Allo's PSU. I suspect it is a design flaw of the DS itself. 

Where did you find these under voltage exceptions ? Is it in a log file ? Mine seems stable, at least it works without necessary restarts, I can connect by SSH and works with volumio or squeezebox clients well about two weeks ago. Volumio loads the RPI about 1% (with "top" command) but I don't use resampling (about 10% load) or brutefir DSP (can do 100% load).  

 

[nbpf]

1 minute ago, Istvan said:

Where did you find these under voltage exceptions ? Is it in a log file ? Mine seems stable, at least it works without necessary restarts, I can connect by SSH and works with volumio or squeezebox clients well about two weeks ago. Volumio loads the RPI about 1% (with "top" command) but I don't use resampling (about 10% load) or brutefir DSP (can do 100% load).  

 

with 'dmesg' from the command line. 'dmesg' prints the message buffer of the kernel, see  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmesg. Today I have reassembled the DigiOne Signature as I have moved it to another Pibow case. Since then, the under voltage exceptions have disappeared. I will monitor how it goes on and report in due time. Perhaps the connection between the clean and the dirty boards of the DS was not proper?  

[Istvan]

Thank you, dmesg looks very useful, I had some error messages as well about my USB stick only, plugged into RPI.

 

Concerning your question about list of power supplies fits to Digione Signature. I don't know how do you see it, but to my ears the best is the battery pack. 4x 3500mAh battery + charger was only 45EUR and I don't think power supply can beat that zero noise. 2x 3500mAh enough for more than 20hours music listening while another two batteries are charging. Allo design is really clever with low power consumption clean board capable to use batteries. They save us hundreds of dollars over PSU.

 

What I tried:

 

1) Battery pack; music instruments are full bodied, very relaxed, detailed music and price is low. Good for people who can accept power on procedure before music listening. I keep this option. 

 

2) Audiophonics PSU (TiborM's advice), same detailed as battery pack but less bodied music it seems there is a few HF noise/distorsions. For 89EUR it is a nice upgrade over the standard PSU, If continuously running streamer is a must. 

 

https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/hifi-power-supply/audiophonics-lpsu25-linear-regulated-low-noise-power-supply-usb-220v-to-5v-2a-25va-p-11364.html

 

3) Allo PSU for the clean side. Good for reserve, somehow less detailed music but overall it works well for that price, plus it is fine later for another Raspberry PI projects.

 

[GrussGott]

On 9/6/2018 at 12:15 AM, Em2016 said:

 

I'm with Rob Watts (Chord) who posts about this a lot on Head-Fi on the various Chord DAC threads - smoother and warmer sounding is what you want to look/listen for with digital components. Anything that sounds more 'detailed' is probably just more RF being injected into the DAC (increasing IM distortion, making it sound a little artificially brighter, mistaken for more detailed)...

 

 

Well, Rob's not exactly the RFI expert though is he?  I mean given he couldn't solve the RFI problem on his Mojo, then brought in a consultant and they worked for months and still couldn't solve it so they gave up, and the Qutest also seems to be a bit sensitive to RFI ... he writes some good FPGA DAC code, but just about everything else he says seems precise but not accurate.

[asdf1000]

2 minutes ago, GrussGott said:

I mean given he couldn't solve the RFI problem on his Mojo, then brought in a consultant and they worked for months and still couldn't solve it so they gave up

 

I'd back his knowledge on how RFI affects the analogue output of a DAC.

 

But I remember the Mojo issue very well - that was a shame. I haven't seen many postings on Head-Fi about RF interference with Hugo2 and Qutest though?

 

Was bringing a consultant in for Mojo discussed on Head-Fi (I may have missed that?) or is that something you know from someone?

 

 

[GrussGott]

1 hour ago, Em2016 said:

 

I'd back his knowledge on how RFI affects the analogue output of a DAC.

 

Um, ok, whatever that could even mean ... especially given it's a completely subjective opinion on what someone is hearing and why.  Maybe it's just better that people listen to their equipment and if they think x or y sounds better they use it vs do what Rob thinks they should (based on his arbitrary of why)?

Quote

 

Is that something you know from someone?

 

A discussion with Rob

 

veering off-topic though, I think Allo is getting dangerously close to blowing up the perception of the need for $1500 of cleaners and reclockers, plus it's a streamer.  I'm buying one!

[One and a half]

On 11/20/2018 at 5:52 PM, nbpf said:

Thanks, this is the first review of the DigiOne Signature that makes sense to me, with meaningful comparisons with the standard DigiOne and with a similarly priced USB to S/PDIF interface. It would be nice to see comparisons with more expensive products like the new Innuos Zen mini mk3 and the dCS Network Bridge at a certain point. For perspective DigiOne Signature owners, a list of power supplies that can be recommended for powering the clean side of the DigiOne Signature would be very useful.

If you were a manufacturer, the price of the Pi is least of the cost. The remainder is the power supply and de-jittering/timing of the outputs. That's where the money can go. Conceivably easily reaching $2-$3k before the case is designed, taking product liability in mind, plus all other commercial realities. So the offerings from DCS, Bricasti, Bryston are looking more attractive with all the hard work completed. My bitch with the DCS bridge is lack of USB out and high DSD rates, but with Roon's ability to convert DSD to 176.4 PCM the gap is significantly narrow.