Allo Boss2 Review (Stereo Streamer)

[Eetu]

Yeah, was thinking on those lines. Would the RPi be cleaner as a source than say a Windows Computer? Measurement wise...especially with a LPSU?

I agree with the posts above. Many high-end streamers are Raspberry Pi-based and as shown many times your DAC does a great job filtering noise. IIRC previous gen Pis had a shared ethernet & USB bus but nothing to worry about with the Pi 4.

And especially as a Roon end-point it should be a set&forget type of thing.

 

[Gaspar74]

Have two Raspberry Pi4 each with an All Boss dac. One has the newer Boss2 which is excellent sounding dac once you engage two of the filters and choose Non Os enabled. Just my opinion.

 

[Fahzz]

Have two Raspberry Pi4 each with an All Boss dac. One has the newer Boss2 which is excellent sounding dac once you engage two of the filters and choose Non Os enabled. Just my opinion.

Could you please explain which filters you engaged and how that's done. I have Non OS enabled. Thanks.

 

[Cofra]

I just got one of these bare units in acrylic. I'm kind of new to the Raspberry pi4 and have a few questions:

-I'd like to add a wifi dongle and at home I have a wifi 6 (ax) compatible network. Is there any suitable wifi dongles compatible with pi4 and supporting wifi 6? If the answer is no, I'll just get a wifi 5 (ac) dongle.

-I'll likely use it as a an wireless endpoint and dac connected to my headphone amp, mainly playing Roon and Qobuz. Is RopieeeXL the most suitable software or do you have other recommendations?

 

[johan]

I am not aware of any WIFI 6 compatible dongles . For ROON and Quobuz you can use DietPi in addition to RopieeXL

 

[NiagaraPete]

Now that you can play Apple Music via a browser could a person just install a browser on Boss2 and use the included remote? I'd think you'd be able to take advantage of Digital Masters that way.

 

[forlau]

How is the cooling of the installed raspi4 realized? Is there any cooling at all?

 

[Theodore8]

How is the cooling of the installed raspi4 realized? Is there any cooling at all?

The most important is that there is no fan.

 

[dtaylo1066]

If you worry about USB quality of the Pi, get an Asus Tinker Board. I run Volumio off a Tinker Board USB out and into a Emotiva DAC. I have done the AB comparison between the Tinker to DAC and a Sony ES CD player to the same DAC. I cannot tell any difference. Both are great.

 

[Theodore8]

In other words, it runs hot!

Don't know about yours, but FWIW mine is just a bit warm to the touch; definitely not "hot".

 

[forlau]

From the answers I read, that there is no fan inside. From my experience, the Raspi needs some cooling, either with a fan or a big heatsink. I was wondering, if Allo uses the housing for passive cooling or if they completely ignore the heat on the CPU?

 

[Tatteredmidnight]

Is the OLED screen always on? Burnin on OLED screens is a major issue, my original SMSL M8 suffered from this and the screen became useless in under a year. Most devices with this sort of OLED screen have moved to turning the screens off after a short period of time (my lavaudio DS600 and SMSL SU-8 do this).

 

[Madeintooting]

Is the OLED screen always on?

No, it comes on on boot and when receiving a signal, seems to go off after about 5 minutes when no signal received (Using Volumio anyway).

 

[forlau]

As far is i can see from the picture, the raspi4 has no heatsink installed. Is it possible to attach a heatsink or isn't there enough space left between the two boards to install at least a thin heatsink?

 

[Madeintooting]

P

As far is i can see from the picture, the raspi4 has no heatsink installed

The whole metal case is the heatsink, there are pads linking heatsources direct to the case. See if you can find a bottom view, this shows it more clearly.

 

[laurelsudeep]

A few ways. Under the Boss2 there is a earth lug. You can connect the lug to earth of your amp. Alternatively you can connect that lug to power earth (please pay attention with anything related to AC power!!)

Hi Johan
How to earth the acrylic version of Boss 2 when powered by Dual Shanti LPS? Nirvana had a switch so it need not need it. I just upgraded to your LPS but this acrylic doesn't seem to have any earth point as the aluminium version.

 

[baroque]

Hi,
Does anyone noticed if RCA socket on Boss2 different than standard.
I have two different RCA cables, both are loose on boos2 sockets. Inner pin and outer ring both loose with my cables.
I tried to find different RCA socket close up pictures on net, one thing I can say, definitely the inner plastic insulation circle is a bit tinier than usual.
I ordered another RCA cable, it has a split pin and outer ring also has six slits, it says "Bevelled step-down design"
hopefully this would solve out my problem.

 

[laurelsudeep]

Hi,
Does anyone noticed if RCA socket on Boss2 different than standard.
.

The one i ordered from allo is loose, but i got another rca cable that came with one of my desktop speakers, which fit perfectly fine.

 

[PurdueDeep]

But is Allo a French company or an Indian one? If it’s Indian, maybe a cricket bat would be more appropriate!

Lolol dont be weird and stereotype

Haha but on a side note, great question. Everyone here is complaining about slow shipping and i got mine same day hahahaha.
They at least have some kind of assembly in India happening.

 

[PurdueDeep]

Any samlple rate / dsd streaming restrictions?

Would you be able to use a wifi dongld via the rear usb ports?

You are able to use a wifi dongle with it. Just a headsup for people setting one up. Theres a wps button on the dongle if you buy it from them. Click it.

move to sysinfo in the menu and select that to find the address to connect to. Now what you need to do is connect to the wifi network provided by the boss 2. And go to the address from earlier on the device connecting to the boss 2’s network.

from here moode has a network tab that you can setup wifi too. If you can get so far this device is spectacular. Its just to get this far is hard. Really poor documentation!

reach out to me if youve got specific queries and ill try and help out like how this forum has helped me