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Review and Measurements of Allo Katana and ApplePi Raspberry Pi DACs

orchardaudio

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m8o

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Hi @johan,

Does Allo have any plans switching to Pi 4 for Katana in the future?

I think Pi 3+ was not a good network streaming platform from the beginning, with its crippled networking & USB ports implementation. Pi 4 fixes all this and also adds extra memory options and performance improvements. This should make it a great combination, Katana on Pi 4.

I've had USBridge since last year and it's a fantastic tiny network streamer, thanks to the Sparky SBC it is based upon. Sparky has dedicated bus for USB 3.0 and Ethernet and this allows me to play FLACs from SSD connected to its USB 3.0 port and from the network shares on my PC and also stream from Spotify all at the same time, with ease. Arguably, it is as close to perfection as a $130 piece of consumer electronics can be (and then some) but Sparky SBC is not the most popular platform, hence not a future proof solution. In fact, Allo site has been listing Sparky / USBridge out of stock for quite some time now...
I have a very different opinion. I have four DACs that have USB in that are all capable of 24/192K and Roon won't recognize any of them as capable of over 96K. USBridge is a door stop as far as I'm concerned. My blood starts to boil every time I hear its name or I look at it, due to all the time I've wasted trying to get it to operate properly. I'm not used to failing. But the USBridge has defeated me. Grrrre.
 

Bamyasi

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I have a very different opinion. I have four DACs that have USB in that are all capable of 24/192K and Roon won't recognize any of them as capable of over 96K. USBridge is a door stop as far as I'm concerned. My blood starts to boil every time I hear its name or I look at it, due to all the time I've wasted trying to get it to operate properly. I'm not used to failing. But the USBridge has defeated me. Grrrre.
Have you tried it with something other than Roon, like the default MPD server? Maybe Roon is the culprit, not the USBridge? So far I have tried my USBridge with three different DACs and they all worked fine but I do not use Roon. I should admit it is obviously too small sample, and two of the DACs I used have the same XMOS XU208 USB interface. Have you tried Alllo support forum? They are sometimes a bit slow to respond but usually would try their best to help. Also, upgrading to latest OS version might help.
 
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johan

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I have a very different opinion. I have four DACs that have USB in that are all capable of 24/192K and Roon won't recognize any of them as capable of over 96K. USBridge is a door stop as far as I'm concerned. My blood starts to boil every time I hear its name or I look at it, due to all the time I've wasted trying to get it to operate properly. I'm not used to failing. But the USBridge has defeated me. Grrrre.


Very sorry to hear that. Please contact us (or send me PM) and we will either fully refund you , or we will try to give you access to main engineer to solve it .
 

wannarock2

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Thanks johan in sharing all our pain. here's a suggestion.
pair a tricked out ESS Pro Pi (katana like) based streamer with the Shanti and,
bLoW the SINAD TOP OFF ThIS PLAcE.
 

Yviena

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@johan off-topic but i'm wondering has Allo thought about making a updated USB/SPDIF transport with configurable HDMI I2S via dip switches?
 

firedog

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As far as I can see the DacBerry Pro+ is not for sale yet and there doesn't seem to be an all in one solution you can buy (with case etc.). The Primo is not compatible with Roon Bridge from what I've read so the Katana SQ with isolator is probably still the best buy. I'm very happy with mine. And like has been mentioned it's sort of splitting hairs at this level. That said I'd also like to see hard data on the SQ vs THD.

I’ve confirmed with Volumio that you can install Roon Bridge on the Primo (same instructions as for RBP); they also told me it is undergoing Roon Certification and should be an official endpoint soon, so future update will include Roon playback.
 
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amirm

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I hope so. Lack of built-in Volumio support is the reason I am avoiding it right now. Installing something manually on top of it defeats the reason to use a packaged image like Volumio. I don't know why they have taken so long to do it.
 

johan

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Ok some information on Rev

Input USB only
Output RCA only


Synch / Asynch selection
Filter selection (all)
OSF bypass (on.off)
Harmonic 2/3 selection (increase /decrease) for euphonic benefit
Linux and Windows drivers DSD 512 tested ok

THD at -124
THD+N -114 around (20hz to 20 Khz) with 80Khz bandwith

Harmonic distortion is harder on the ear than N (noise). At -124 THD this DAC is one of the best ess Sabre implementation (even VS pro)
 
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johan

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H2 at 2 (from 7 settings) and H3 at 3

Yes euphonics effects are real . Even if THD slightly suffers H2 and H3 are masked by fundamental so not audible...the euphonics benefits are rather easy to hear.

I made a mistake , both channels THD are over -124 (124.5 and 125.2)
 

wannarock2

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Greetings johan, a couple more questions. Will the Rev support WiFi and if so will Volumio be available? Thanks in advance for your response.
 
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Veri

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@wannarock2 Revolution will be typical consumer USB DAC. Not like Allo Katana which you can still buy, to combine with RPi/Volumio. Doesn't look like Rev will support Wi-Fi, no.
 

wannarock2

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thanks Veri,
next Allo premium streaming arrangement?
USBridge Signature Player <> Shanti <> Revolution DAC
would look forward to a amirm audition (。◕‿◕。)
 
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m8o

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Was just investigating making a raspberry pi based remote controllable music player for a friend on the cheap. I'm very disappointed to discover that neither of these are in production anymore. :(

Allo did a phenomenal job of redirecting every legacy link about the Katana to the Revolution (It's like it never existed; lol.) But which doesnt appear to be offered as a bare bones HAT.

Similar story with Orchard Audio about the ApplePi; at least it is available as a HAT board alone. The objection with the pecan pi is the form factor. Doesnt lend itself to as compact of a final device; unruly too if you mount it to the 7" screen standup case; even more so if you adapt the balanced out to unbalanced (as the case orientation has thr connectors going straight up). This really is envisioned to be used with the case designed for it. And then price of entry becomes about 50% higher than it would otherwise cost me.

So point being these old high water marks in the measurably best DAC HATS have both been replaced with items that come with caveats that's going to cost me/you extra $$$. And even the Audiophonics EVO-SABRE Balanced RPI DAC just tested comes with extras I dont need but am paying for to let it run stand-alone and provide display.

I guess I'll just use the next best bare bones budget hat and use the Boss v1.2. (Honestly disappointed in the performance of every other dac hat tested. I very much appreciate amirm for illuminating us to the performance of them all!) FWIW, I -do- hear a difference between my ApplePi and Boss [v1] on my systems. But I'm sure my friend's reciever and speakers won't notice the difference. This above is more a concern of what -I- will get when I want to build another streamer / player, as the cheapskate that I am (a common trait of many RPi users I find.)
 

dsnyder0cnn

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Was just investigating making a raspberry pi based remote controllable music player for a friend on the cheap. I'm very disappointed to discover that neither of these are in production anymore. :(

I guess I'll just use the next best bare bones budget hat and use the Boss v1.2. (Honestly disappointed in the performance of every other dac hat tested. I very much appreciate amirm for illuminating us to the performance of them all!) FWIW, I -do- hear a difference between my ApplePi and Boss [v1] on my systems. But I'm sure my friend's reciever and speakers won't notice the difference. This above is more a concern of what -I- will get when I want to build another streamer / player, as the cheapskate that I am (a common trait of many RPi users I find.)

I noticed this too. Odd…especially about the Katana redirects. I just ordered a HiFiBerry DAC2 HD for a project similar to yours: https://www.hifiberry.com/docs/data-sheets/datasheet-dac-hd/

I'll pop it onto a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ running DietPi and Roon Bridge. Expecting a nice bump in performance over the HiFiBerry DAC+ Pro builds I've done in the past.
 

orchardaudio

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Was just investigating making a raspberry pi based remote controllable music player for a friend on the cheap. I'm very disappointed to discover that neither of these are in production anymore. :(

The updated version is selling here:
www.orchardaudio.com/pecanpi-dac
 
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