This is a review and detailed measurements of the Allo Miniboss DAC for Raspberry Pi Zero single board computer. The combination provides a compact streamer. Miniboss DAC costs US $41.
The owner nicely packaged a 2 watt version of Raspberry Pi Zero with the Miniboss DAC in this tiny and ultra cute box. This is what the board looks like:
The heart of the unit is TI PCM5122 DAC chip. Its specs are modest so let's not expect miracles:
Owner was kind enough to install Volumio on the Pi Zero making configuration and use as a streamer a breeze. I opted to stream to it using my Roon player which Volumio supports as an end point. All I had to do is access the unit using its default access point, reconfigure it to connect to my home network and I was streaming/playing music!
For power, I used just a standard Samsung USB charger courtesy of the 2 watt zero being able to run on such standard power supplies.
Allo Miniboss Measurements
Due to inability to control these products with my Audio Precision software, I can only run a limited set of tests. But I think they are more than enough to quantify the performance of miniboss starting with our dashboard at maximum level:
We see performance matching/exceeding chip spec even though we are driving it at full scale. Dropping the level down using Roon volume control a couple of notches, buys is a bit more performance:
Dynamic range was surprisingly good, courtesy of clean design by Allo:
Allo talks fair bit about clocking and we see the results in a clean jitter test:
Multitone shows lower distortion yet than what our dashboard achieved (due to lower maximum level):
Conclusions
It is incredible what you can build these days in such tidy package, enabled by excellent engineering on behalf of RPi Foundation and Allo. You choice of streaming software and performance that is good enough for 16 bit playback. All powered with a standard USB charger. This thing is sipping power! I would love to see a higher performance version of this from Allo although I don't know that the board space and power budget allow it.
I am going to recommend the Allo Miniboss DAC with its companion RPi Zero board.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The owner nicely packaged a 2 watt version of Raspberry Pi Zero with the Miniboss DAC in this tiny and ultra cute box. This is what the board looks like:
The heart of the unit is TI PCM5122 DAC chip. Its specs are modest so let's not expect miracles:
Owner was kind enough to install Volumio on the Pi Zero making configuration and use as a streamer a breeze. I opted to stream to it using my Roon player which Volumio supports as an end point. All I had to do is access the unit using its default access point, reconfigure it to connect to my home network and I was streaming/playing music!
For power, I used just a standard Samsung USB charger courtesy of the 2 watt zero being able to run on such standard power supplies.
Allo Miniboss Measurements
Due to inability to control these products with my Audio Precision software, I can only run a limited set of tests. But I think they are more than enough to quantify the performance of miniboss starting with our dashboard at maximum level:
We see performance matching/exceeding chip spec even though we are driving it at full scale. Dropping the level down using Roon volume control a couple of notches, buys is a bit more performance:
Dynamic range was surprisingly good, courtesy of clean design by Allo:
Allo talks fair bit about clocking and we see the results in a clean jitter test:
Multitone shows lower distortion yet than what our dashboard achieved (due to lower maximum level):
Conclusions
It is incredible what you can build these days in such tidy package, enabled by excellent engineering on behalf of RPi Foundation and Allo. You choice of streaming software and performance that is good enough for 16 bit playback. All powered with a standard USB charger. This thing is sipping power! I would love to see a higher performance version of this from Allo although I don't know that the board space and power budget allow it.
I am going to recommend the Allo Miniboss DAC with its companion RPi Zero board.
----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
