Hello fellow ASR'Rs,
I built a system last fall based upon a RPi running Volumio connected by USB to a SMSL DO100 PRO DAC, driving balanced dual Fosi Audio V3 mono's feeding a pair of Paradigm towers.
I've been super happy with this solution, lossless Tidal really shows off high resolution audio. It's low end I know, but was a mostly informed decision based upon wanting balanced DAC to amp and not being happy with some of the other more integrated solutions out there.
There are two reasons I need to replace it. First, and the driver here, is the USB interface died on the DAC. SMSL support via who I purchased it from ([email protected]) has been unresponsive on honoring the 1 year warranty so far.
The second reason, I didn't discover this until I built the Volumio pi server, but it can't digitally control the volume level. You either need to set a high volume and then use software to control the volume, or don't use volume control with Volumio and instead use the DAC remote control to set the volume. When I'm showing off the system to a fellow audiophile I do the latter, but in practice I control volume with software. I can definitely hear the loss of fidelity.
So I'm looking for a non SMSL DAC that can be volume digitally controlled by Volumio, USB interface minimally (but nice to have BT APTX lossless and LDAC), and must have balanced out, ideally 2V and 4/5V. I'm not too excited about any RPi hat solutions.
Price point in the $200 range, ideally less.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions/thoughts on this!
I built a system last fall based upon a RPi running Volumio connected by USB to a SMSL DO100 PRO DAC, driving balanced dual Fosi Audio V3 mono's feeding a pair of Paradigm towers.
I've been super happy with this solution, lossless Tidal really shows off high resolution audio. It's low end I know, but was a mostly informed decision based upon wanting balanced DAC to amp and not being happy with some of the other more integrated solutions out there.
There are two reasons I need to replace it. First, and the driver here, is the USB interface died on the DAC. SMSL support via who I purchased it from ([email protected]) has been unresponsive on honoring the 1 year warranty so far.
The second reason, I didn't discover this until I built the Volumio pi server, but it can't digitally control the volume level. You either need to set a high volume and then use software to control the volume, or don't use volume control with Volumio and instead use the DAC remote control to set the volume. When I'm showing off the system to a fellow audiophile I do the latter, but in practice I control volume with software. I can definitely hear the loss of fidelity.
So I'm looking for a non SMSL DAC that can be volume digitally controlled by Volumio, USB interface minimally (but nice to have BT APTX lossless and LDAC), and must have balanced out, ideally 2V and 4/5V. I'm not too excited about any RPi hat solutions.
Price point in the $200 range, ideally less.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions/thoughts on this!
