We at Volumio think that an User Interface refresh is the way! So please welcome: the new Volumio3 User Interface Beta!

We’ve been working hard in those months to improve usability and look of our beloved user interface, following all the great feedbacks from our Community and OEM partners.
The priciples we followed are:

• Re-use existing (and common) User Experience logics from mainstream music players. So, let’s not reinvent the wheel and let’s take what’s good in other music players out there. So you’ll notice that the structure might look familiar… We’ve taken pieces of UI from our favourite Music Players and combined them together to offer an easy and intuitive environment, without loosing the uniqueness of Volumio’s distinctive look.
• Allow for more expansion in the future: the new Ui is the first milestone in a bigger overhaul project (codenamed Volumio3). We want to allow advanced navigation capabilities (interlinking and semantic browsing) and providing credits, lyrics and additional informations in an easy and convenient way. This will take place by the end of this year, and we designed the user interface to be ready to adopt those new changes.
• Great focus on mobile: Mobile use is where we focused the most, with adaptive and dynamic menus.

Let’s see some screenshots:

Notice the left bar and bottom bar? Needless to say: this layout works…

An easier placement for settings…

Queue, for those who can’t live without…

And a great news… We are seriously preparing for multiroom…

The mobile playback view, in all its glory…

Browsing on mobile…

Album view on Mobile…

Multiroom view on mobile…

HOW TO ENABLE THE VOLUMIO3 UI BETA

Super easy:

• Update to latest version (the new UI is available starting from version 2.598)
• Head to Settings, Appearance and scroll to the bottom
• Enable The experimental Volumio3 UI
• Click save, and restart Volumio
• Once restarted, refresh your browser page
• Enjoy!

Since this is a major overhaul, we are keen to receive your feedbacks. So make sure that you let us know what you think, what does not work, what you would like to be improved in the dedicated forum thread.

THE BEST IS YET TO COME

As you might have understood, the contribution of MyVolumio are providing us with a great boost, which we are re-investing heavily in both the Free and Premium side of Volumio. And yes, we have many many new features and updates coming:

• Multiroom synced playback
• Advanced Browsing Capabilities
• Hiresaudio.com integration
• Deezer Integration
• Bluetooth integration
• Credits and Lyrics
• Analog Input playback

Those great improvements are to be gradually released from here to the end of the year. So, if you needed one more reason to try MyVolumio, now you have it: this will help us bring to you those functionalities as soon as possible!

Enjoy and have a great summer!

The post A summer (UI) Refresh for Volumio appeared first on Volumio.

First of all, what is Superphonica and why we love it.
Superphonica is a creation by the same team of Computer Audiophile (now Audiophile Style). It is an online marketplace for buying and selling used audio hardware. We believe it is a fresh breath for the second hand audio marketplace scene: just snap photos with your phone and list the items for sale, all from your phone, laptop, or desktop. It takes just a couple of minutes.

There are no costs to list an item and Superphonica gets a tiny 1% fee only when your item sells. Those fees are then reinvested to finance new reviews and articles on Audiophile Style, one of the best Online Community and Blog in the Audio Industry.

We have recently met Chris, Superphonica’s founder, and we have found a man that share with us an immense passion for the Audio and Music industry. We found many synergies between Volumio and Superphonica, and we decided to start a collaboration right away with the aim of bringing great benefits to the entire Volumio Community.

This is how Chris explains his vision:

“Superphonica is the marketplace that we always wanted and dreamt of. We were tired of our grandfather’s classified section, so we created the Rolls Royce of marketplaces for audio. We also wanted to bring pricing down to a level that makes sense for everybody. There is zero cost to list an item for sale and only a 1% fee when the items sells. If items don’t sell right away they remain available until they sell without the need to re-list or touch anything. In addition, all the money Superphonica brings in, goes to hire writers at Audiophile Style who review the gear you love. Sell on Superphonica and get more than just money in your pocket.”

So, how does the Volumio-Superphonica collaboration work? And why it’s a great chance for you all?

A GREAT CHANCE TO REPLACE YOUR OLD STREAMER WITH A SHINY NEW VOLUMIO PRIMO

Yes, for all of you craving to get yourself our Volumio Primo Streamer this is a great chance to put on sale your old streamer on Superphonica and immediately get 10% off on Volumio Primo!

It’s super easy:

• List your Streamer for sale on Superphonica (or any other piece of Audio equipment)
• Once your listing is created, you will receive via mail a 10% off coupon code for Volumio Primo
• Head to the Volumio Primo page, add it to cart and insert the code at checkout
• Smile, you got yourself a fantastic Audiophile Streamer and a great deal!

So, if you were considering upgrading your Streamer and getting yourself a Primo, be quick and get this deal while it lasts!

The post Volumio with Superphonica: a great deal to replace your old streamer with a Volumio Primo appeared first on Volumio.

Then, I carefully unwrapped the prototypes from their protective package. I had, for the first time, Motivo shining in my hands.

Boy, this was a moment. A defining one. And after one year of hard work, passionate commitment and countless challenges, it was finally real.

It was so beautiful, so well proportioned, so finely crafted. Even its weight was just perfect.

Yes, I had a moment of magic in this rainy German afternoon.

This is what I saw.

We choose Munich High-End for the world premiere of Volumio Motivo because it was the perfect place for such a Groundbreaking product. We wanted to share our vision with all the Industry and make a bold and refreshing statement: this is our vision for the next generation Audiophile Streamers.

And then… The show opened.

And all the visitors, friends, partners, curious, press that saw the Motivo had the same shine in their eyes as I had the very first moment I saw it. I must admit, I never thought, even in my wildest dreams that one day we would have showcased such an iconic piece of equipment.

But, should you think that the Motivo is only an evocative design with lots of output options and a touchscreen, you’ll be very wrong. And here starts the boring part.

VOLUMIO MOTIVO: A WORLD’S FIRST TECHNOLOGY

You might have read in our previous post that Motivo is the brainchild of a Joint Venture between world-class industrial design firm Design Narratives and R&D and audio design Company Yottamusic.

Yottamusic has been working for 10 years on their the core-technology which is now in the Motivo: METACLOCK.

This Technology has 3 core principles:

• Do not use a generic SOC (System-on-chip to handle communication with the DAC)
• Use an interface that, other than USB and I2S allows faster data transfer
• Use a dedicated FPGA (a particular kind of processor which is extremely optimized for certain tasks) to handle communication with the DAC. Therefore emancipating the Audio Quality outcome from the OS\CPU combination.

It works this way:

• The audio stream is sent from the CPU via a high-speed BUS (SDIO) to a dedicated FPGA
• Here the stream is reclocked via a double buffer and stored on a high-speed memory
• It’s then sent, at the right moment to the DAC

The results that it brings:

• 104dB THD+N
• 110dB SNR
• Jitter: 200ps Maximum
• Network data correction

This means that with Metaclock technology, Volumio Motivo is able to achieve outstanding sound quality performances without the need of esoteric (and expensive) designs, following our core principle: the best possible sound quality with an unbeatable price\performance ratio.

Integrating Metaclock technology is being probably the biggest challenge Volumio Team has faced so far: since this technology has never been done before, in this way, there is no standard to follow nor any HOWTO nor literature. We are currently working hard to implement the very complex software integration to take the most out of this technology, without compromising on usability.

But, as soon as we were able to make the Motivo sing, all the struggle and the pain immediately was gone: Motivo sounds like I never, never, never heard anything before.

In this moment I understood why we were all doing this. And this is where the name Motivo was born: Motivo means Meaning and Purpose in Italian.

VOLUMIO MOTIVO TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

For those of you craving for technical specifications, here they are:

Balanced and Unbalanced Analog Audio Output up to PCM 32 bit 768 kHz and DSD 1024
USB Audio Output up to PCM 32 bit 768 kHz and DSD512
SPDIF and Toslink Digital Audio Output up to PCM 24 bit 192 kHz
I2S over HDMI Audio Output
8” Onboard OLED Touchscreen
HDMI Video Output
Gigabit Ethernet
Wireless 2.4 and 5 GHz + Bluetooth 4.1
Physical Volume Knob + Turn on\off button
Programmable state LED

THE BEST IS YET TO COME, AND WE WANT YOU TO BE PART OF THIS JOURNEY

We want to say a huge thank you to everyone that stopped to our booth and told us wonders about the Motivo. We want to say a huge thank you to everyone that wrote us (we’re overwhelmed by this reaction) asking more details and availability for the Volumio Motivo (the press already named it “A Gorgeous Audio Streamer“).
We want to say thank you to all our community members, for making us what we are today. We want to say thank you to all our partners who believe in us and what we want to achieve.

We want to say thank you for reminding us once again why we are doing this, and why Motivo is something important for all of us.

Now, the road which will lead to Motivo manufacturing has started, and our goal is to have it on sale starting from September 2019. The Motivo will be positioned as our flagship Integrated Streamer and although it will be priced sensibly higher than Primo it will offer, as always, an unbeatable Quality\Price ratio.

And this is where it gets interesting: as always, we think the best way to deliver what you guys want is to involve you directly in our developments. 

So, we want to invite you to join us the final design phase of Volumio Motivo. We want you to be part of this success, and we do strongly believe that your help will make the difference for Volumio Motivo, as it was for everything we’ve done in the past.

By entering your email below, you’ll join a dedicated mailing list where we will ask your opinion about some final decision about features, design choices and product variants. You will be kept closely posted on the development of the project. And as a final thank you, you’ll get priority access to preorders when available.

The post Join us on an epic journey called Volumio Motivo appeared first on Volumio.

The creative space, better known as “THE place to be for music ideas & technology” since 2012, brings together academics as well as practitioners and shines bright with its major contributors such as Spotify, Soundcloud, Shazam, EMI and many more, which will all be physically be present with a booth throughout the weekend.

From technological innovations and artistic experimentations to musical performances, new inventions, commercial applications, and academic research – a 360-degree mind (and ear) stimulation for every music enthusiast and tech nerd.

Days full of getting informed and inform, full of getting inspired and inspire, full of getting educated and educate!

And yes, Volumio will be part of this year’s noteworthy MTF lineup! We will have talks and meetings during the whole week and give a sneak peak of our latest and greatest initiative: AMBIMUSIC (which will be officially unveiled in late September).

Last but not least, we will sponsor and on Friday and Saturday the Hackathon @ Music Tech Fest Hack Camp, which basically runs for 24 hours from Saturday afternoon to Sunday and focuses on music-related hack challenges. We will award the best hacks with products coming from our shop!

So, if you happen to be there and want to get in touch, use our contact form to let us know and meet

Save the date! 7th-9th of September. See you in Stockholm @ Music Tech Fest!

The post Volumio at Music Tech Fest Stockolm appeared first on Volumio.

The Allo Katana DAC is surely the most anticipated and waited I2S DAC this year. I won’t be boring you saying how much Allo is innovative, clever, etc. But sure they managed to get quite some attention when they announced their bold intention to create “The best implementation of ESS9038 DAC”.

Given the reputation they’ve established with their past products (Kali, BOSS and Digione, just to name a few), no wonder that this DAC has been awaited by many so badly, me included.

So after 7 months after their announcement, I finally got the Katana delivered to my doorstep. Allo sent me the full, ready to play Allo Katana Player and a Allo Katana DAC stack (DAC only).
I got therefore the chance to live the “customer experience on both products”, and I would like to start with that, since for this product it’s especially important.

THE KATANA EXPERIENCE

The Allo Katana DAC is definitely a learning experience: you have 3 boards stacked one on top of another (from the bottom: DAC, Output Stage, Microcontroller), and you immediately notice it’s full of Power Supply sockets, jumpers, selectors, wires…

So, in fear of making a mess, I immediately started to read Katana’s manual, immediately feeling like this thing needed a proper and cautious setup.

Long Story short: the Katana is not an easy plug and play DAC, it’s not for beginners and it’s not something you want to wire up the wrong way. Allo made sure their manual is clear and detailed, but surely I would not recommend to a novice of the Raspberry PI world to start with it (I will instead recommend getting the full player, we’ll see later why).

It reminds me the first sensations I had when back in the days I was restoring turntables: the constant feeling of dealing with a delicate equipment, that understanding how to treat it is fundamental to not make a disaster and that getting the most out of it is a matter of patience, study and effort.

If I shall make a remark to Allo: if there is a way to simplify the 3 boards, do it. As of now, it feels too complex even for expert users. I know for some this can be a good thing, but I definitely think that simplicity is the ultimate sophisticacy, and I don’t see an effort in this direction with the Katana.

With the Allo Katana Player instead, you get basically everything ready to play, configured, and packed in a nice case. I’ve no fear to say that at the moment, the Allo Katana Player (with Volumio of course) is the BEST Price\Quality ratio streamer on the market. And given how easy Volumio has become, and how good Allo packed this wonderful DAC, it’s definitely suggested for those wanting to get their first serious streamer.

THE ALLO KATANA TECH 101

The Allo Katana DAC consists of 3 separated components, working together and stacked one on top of another:

The DAC board itself

This board hosts the pulsing heart of the Katana: the ESS9038 DAC, probably the most praised piece of silicon in the industry today (at least by Audio designers…). On the same board, we find also the ultra-low phase noise NDK oscillators for the DAC.
This has been Allo’s trademark when it comes to design: make sure the DAC works in Master mode (making it immune from Pi’s poor and jittery clock) and put excellent oscillators in the mix.

In my experience, such design choice results in excellent instrumental separation and great rhythm (every audio sample is played in the very exact moment it’s meant to).

The Output stage

That’s the really interesting bit in my opinion. Allo went all-in with an extravagant, but brave, choice: a class A opamp output stage. The first contradiction here is that Opamps are usually associated with bad sound, while class A is usually a synonym of top-notch circuitry.

The second point is that you would not expect to place a current-sucking class A design on top of a low power device (with no trace of heatsinking) like the Raspberry PI.

Ioan from Allo repliying to my questions, commented:

• Opamps are usually associated with Monolitic opamps (really cheap semiconductors that just get the job done, used where price and board real estate is crucial), while Allo has teamed up with an analog designer (sparkoslabs.com) that designs Opamps made with discrete components (they actually contain transistors, capacitors and resistors). Add that the analog circuit is designed (and trimmed) by hand, using premium capacitors, premium resistors and it runs in class A, Allo states that this output stage is completely transparent.
• The Output stage can be eventually turned off, by operating a switch on the MCU board (except when fed with +-15 external power). I initially thought that the MCU had the capability to detect the DACs idle state and turn off the output stage, but it turned out not to be the case. But this can be a really brilliant feature (mainly for those who leave their unit on 24/7) and I would love if Allo manages to implement it.

The Microcontroller

The ESS9038 DAC cannot be easily integrated into pure i2s implementations (like all Raspberry PI Audio shields), for a variety of different reasons. So the most common way is to stack a microcontroller between the PI I2S BUS and the DAC itself, and this DAC makes no difference. Therefore nothing special here.

POWERING IT UP

The Katana is designed to be powered up in 3 different configurations (quoting Allo’s manual, from the worst in terms of Sound Quality to the best):

– Single power (1 5V 3A PSU, USB type C connector to the MCU Board)
– Double Power (1 5V 3A PSU, USB type C connector to the MCU Board + 1 5V 3A PSU, Micro USB Type connector to the Raspberry PI)
– Triple Power (1 5V 3A PSU, USB type C connector to the MCU Board + 1 5V 3A PSU, Micro USB Type connector to the Raspberry PI + 5V 3A via black and red wire)
– Quad Power (1 5V 3A PSU, USB type C connector to the MCU Board + 1 5V 3A PSU, Micro USB Type connector to the Raspberry PI + 5V 3A via black and red wire + -+15 Power Supply)

Quad Power supply is what theoretically will allow the best Sound Quality, although Allo specified that “A very good Power Supply must be used to get better results than our onboard regulators”. So what Allo recommends as best SQ in the manual is actually triple power supply, where no +-15 Volts requires to be fed. In this configuration, you need however to wire (and potentially solder, if you like clean jobs) two power wires carrying 5V.

I am trying the Katana Player in double PSU configuration, powering the PI with a generic 5V 3A power supply, and powering the Katana Controller board with an ifi iPower (to get the most out of this combination I’ve added an iFi groundhog, useful to get rid of any possible ground loop in my system).

My listening impressions are therefore related to this configuration (which is, with Allo’s words: medium Sound Quality settings), so I will try it with 3 different PSUs and update this review accordingly (although I won’t keep the system in this configuration, unless I see no less than Angels and Goddesses, since it will be a pain to have all those wires in my listening position, see later).

The worst part of this design choice is that achieving its full potential is quite a tradeoff: 3 different PSU are needed: 2 x 5V 3A power supplies, and a dual +15-15.

So, getting the most out of the Katana requires at least some electronic skills (playing with DIY power supply is potentially very dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing), and you necessarily need to add about 100 euros to its base price ( to get the additional PSUs) and that the Katana player setup will involve a quite messy wiring scheme in your tidy electronic shelf.

THE SOUND

Enough talking, let’s get straight to the point of how the ALLO Katana DAC sounds.

In two words: resolution and quantity.

This is the first time the word “resolution” comes to my mind when describing a music equipment. The quantity of details, instrumental separation and micro-dynamic is unmatched in the whole I2S DAC world. I would say that also it clearly surpasses my main DAC (Opera Consonance Don Curzio, Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital) in this aspect. I’ve heard many details of my music which I never suspected the existence, and notably, it happened especially when I was not paying attention.

Some examples: in some tracks I’ve heard for the first time the tail of Charleston (Take Five), or an organ background (Mammagamma). This DAC is therefore not detailed, but rather Hyper detailed.

I am the kind of guy that love hearing every subtle detail, but the Katana experience is like a binge detailing session. It sometimes feels too much, and it easily becomes fatiguing.

Another double-edged quality of this DAC is that it’s able to deliver a hugely emotional experience: as always, this is one of the aspects I care the most (and it’s probably where the advantages of being a jitter-immune Master DAC comes into play). While listening to it my feet started to tap to the floor, and I was totally immersed in the rhythm.

This DAC catches your attention. It’s involving, demanding. This is probably what I like the most about it, because the emotional transport it’s able to convey it’s unmatched in my whole listening history.
But this is also what I don’t like about it.

It’s tiring: it throws at you a huge lot of information in the musical message. And, at least for now, I can’t sustain a listening session of more than an hour without wanting to stop the music and take a rest. Last but not least, as with all very detailed DACs, the quality of the recording is crucial: lo-fi tracks becomes quite tedious to listen, as you’re exposed to all their defects.

I’ve discussed with Allo about such aspects and they reported me that they all had the same impression: powerful but fatiguing. They then suggested to let it burn-in for at least for 24 hours, and the DAC will keep improving until about a couple weeks of use.

I am not a fan of burn-in, mainly because I can’t completely understand the reasons for such a phenomenon. But Allo’s Ioan explained that

“We have over 20 film caps and 2 Suprecaps which need to stabilize. The burn in period is 2 weeks. Dac will become slightly better because Supercaps need a longer period than film capacitors. Like a good wine Katana gets better with age”.

I really hope, and I have no reasons to doubt Ioan’s words (other past Allo products proved to improve considerably after some burn-in time), that this is actually the case. The Katana is on a whole new level on pretty much any aspect on anything on the I2S panorama, and if burn-in actually reduces this “too-much” effect that this brings in, it’s definitely my favorite DAC.

I will update my review after some days of usage to confirm if that actually happens, and what the change magnitude is.

The last mention of honor goes to the low-end of this DAC. That’s the best bottom line I ever heard. One of my favorite bass ever is in the song Allarme by CCCP, and boy this is the first time I ever heard it this way. If you’ve already heard the BOSS DAC, that’s the same bass signature, but multiplied per 10 (so I guess the Supercapacitor plays a role, and the difference is increased by the output stage).

A COMPARISON

The ideal candidates to compare against the Allo Katana DAC are the DACs I would place in the “Top-tier I2S DAC” category, namely:

• Orchard Audio – ApplePI DAC: A dual mono Burr Brown PCM1794A DAC, with a radical approach to clocking
• TERRATECHNOS – Terra-BerrYDAC 2+ : A refined AK4490 DAC implementation with onboard reclocking
• TauDAC-DM101: The only I2S DAC with Lundahl line output transformers

I will exclude the TauDac (since it costs about 4 times as the other contenders), and put the comparison this way:

The Allo Katana DAC outperforms the contenders when it comes to: detail, PRAAT (let’s call it rythm), bass response, ground noise floor, instrumental separation. The TerraBerry is a more suitable choice for those wanting a “relaxed” listening experience, while for those wanting overall tonal balance probably the ApplePi is to be preferred.

CONCLUSION

The Good

• Fantastic musicality
• Hyperdetailed: you will rediscover even the tracks you know best
• Amazing and powerful bass
• It’s the most “involving” DAC I’ve ever had, to me it’s a plus

The Meh

• It’s not for everyone, not totally beginner friendly
• To get the best out of it, 3 Power supplies are required
• It’s so good, that for some this can be “too much” (to be verified after burn-in)

I must admit: the Katana in itself is a revelation, it is a “different” listening experience. It is, without a doubt, the most interesting piece of equipment for music enthusiasts although it’s not for everybody (some skills are required to get the most out of it).

The Allo Katana DAC can be seen as the most revealing, musical and involving DAC currently on the scene, and its qualities can make it either the absolute love for some or a tedious overwhelming listening experience for others. I am, slowly, starting to love the revealing effect it is offering me.

As always, if you like Volumio and want to get the Allo Katana DAC or Allo Katana Player, by getting from our Shop you’ll be supporting our beloved project.

And you’ll be getting also a really nice bonus:
a voucher code for 4 months of MyVolumio (which is about to receive TIDAL support, BTW…). So you can test your brand new Katana with Hi-Res streaming…

I’ve no fear to say that Volumio + MyVolumio + Katana Player is without doubt the best quality\ratio streamer currently on the market. 

UPDATE 1

Errata corrige:

There have been some mistakes in my review (I’ve corrected in the main text, but I’ll write them down here for those who like diffs):

• I’ve erroneously mentioned that “The Microcontroller unit is programmed in a way that it turns off the output stage when not used, saving power.” That’s not true: the MCU cannot shut down the output stage, but it can be done manually by switching a selector on the MicroController board (J27, assuming you’ve not powered the Opamp stage separately, in which case this jumper would be set to off anyway, getting power from +-15 external source).
• I’ve erroneously mentioned that there are 3 ways to power the Katana, while there are actually 4:
  – Single power (1 5V 3A PSU, USB type C connector to the MCU Board)
  – Double Power (1 5V 3A PSU, USB type C connector to the MCU Board + 1 5V 3A PSU, Micro USB Type connector to the Raspberry PI)
  – Triple Power (1 5V 3A PSU, USB type C connector to the MCU Board + 1 5V 3A PSU, Micro USB Type connector to the Raspberry PI + 5V 3A via black and red wire)
  – Quad Power (1 5V 3A PSU, USB type C connector to the MCU Board + 1 5V 3A PSU, Micro USB Type connector to the Raspberry PI + 5V 3A via black and red wire + -+15 Power Supply)

Quad Power supply is what theoretically will allow the best Sound Quality, although Allo specified that “A very good Power Supply must be used to get better results than our onboard regulators”. So what Allo recommends as best SQ in the manual is actually triple power supply, where no +-15 Volts requires to be fed. In this configuration, you need however to wire (and potentially solder, if you like clean jobs) two power wires carrying 5V.

• I’ve written that “Opamps are usually associated with cheap designs”, but it would have been better expressed with “Opamps are usually associated with bad sound”

I’ve now left the Katana to burn in for about 48 hours, and I am doing more (relaxed) listening sessions. I am taking some time to understand if and how things changed with the burn-in process, and I will report my listening impressions. In the meanwhile, I discovered 2 great tracks which will stay in my test track list for long time to come: Low by Lenny Kravitz and Opening by Philip Glass. And guess what: I am listening them via TIDAL native integration which has just been released into MyVolumio beta.

UPDATE 2 

I have the Katana in my listening room for 6 days now, so the “burn-in” effect should have made its way into my unit (Allo states however that Katana will keep on improving, although slightly for 2 weeks). Before moving on I would like to remind once more that those are my subjective opinions, and as such they should be taken (even though it’s my duty and ethical obligation to be as objective as possible, given the great responsibility I feel towards this community).

To be fairly honest I did not notice a tangible improvement after this burn-in process (except the fatigue which slightly dimished). What was immediately clear however was the difference in performance when powering it in triple mode (3 X 5V 3A PSUs): The Katana with triple PSU gains even more detail and instrumental separation. I’ve made sure I’ve listened to tracks I know very well, and for each one I’ve heard instrumentals in the background which I did not notice (or were not that intelligible) before. My assumption is that the DAC gets an additional bonus in signal\noise ratio, and the effect is clearly audible.

What’s worth noting is that powering the Katana player this way is a bit like of a ritual: first power up the Katana, then connect the type C USB PSU to the MCU board (top one) and finally (after the LED on MCU is lit) power up the PI. Those of you wanting to plug the 3 PSUs to a single multiple socket and turn this on and off to power the whole thing might, therefore, be out of luck (or maybe there is a way to do so, but I am not aware of it).

Another experiment I did was to change the DSP programs of the Katana. Volumio allows (from playback options) to change the DAC DSP on the fly, so it’s quite easy to evaluate their impact. You can choose between various DSP filters, and I found my sweet-spot on the “Apodizing Fast-Rolloff Filter” (if I recall correctly that should be the default one).

Coming to deemphasis, I noticed that selecting 44.1 kHz removed the “harsh” effect on the high range that I experienced in my Studio setup. On the other hand, selecting this value while playing on my main gear felt like removing “the real deal” from the musical message (so on my main setup, I do not use deemphasis by selecting “Bypass”).

Another very positive aspect of the Katana is 3d soundstage: the spatial reconstruction (on well-recorded tracks) is excellent.

Another point I noticed is that Katana was not a very good match with my Studio setup, while in my main setup it was giving its best. To me it looks like the Katana is one of those devices which require a “matching” setup: if your setup is on “the brigth side” then it might exacerbate the Katana tendency to offer great details in the high range (resulting maybe too bright and sometimes harsh). This is what I felt in my Studio setup (which is a near-field, monitor-like bookshelves setup, very generous on the higher range of the spectrum and with little bass response).

My main setup instead was giving justice to the Katana, and the overall balance whole chain resulted in a definetely pleasant listening experience. I want to remark once more: the Katana has one of the best bass ever, but combine this with the high quantity of details on the high range and you get sometimes that the two extremes of the band are in slight evidence compared to the rest.

The word that comes to my mind after 6 days of listening sessions with the Katana is “realism”. This DAC, more than any other I’ve ever listened to, gives me the illusion of the real deal. There has been one moment, while I was listening on Dope Noir by Waldeck, where I felt that what I was hearing was the actual original event: everything sounded so “vivid” and “true”. I recall this as one of the few “wow moments” in Hi-Fi I’ve had lately.

My conclusion with the Katana is: it’s probably the best I2S DAC on the market as of now when it comes to details, PRAAT and realism. The Katana gives its best with good-recorded tracks, and if fine tuned and with a matching setup it will deliver the “real deal”, what we audiophiles are always looking for. The only problem with that is that sometimes to me it felt “too much”.

In any case, the Katana is staying in my main gear, in place of my was-reference-DAC.

Side note: some have taken my words about the Katana not being beginner-friendly as it being “Expert only”. It’s not. Katana will suit the needs both of novices (especially the ready to play player) and the tinkerers, but bear in mind that getting the most out of it requires study, attention and a bit of pain (like 3 or 4 different power supplies and subsequently one of the worst WAF ever).

UPDATE 3

Welcome to this new episode of the “Katana Saga”. For those of you who lost previous episodes:
Allo, probably the most disruptive manufacturer of I2S DACs and accessories for Raspberry PI, set themselves with a bold goal: develop the best sounding implementation of ES9038Q2M DAC (one of the most praised DAC chips on the market).
They have been taking quite a long time to design it and released in late July of 2018 under lots of expectations by the DIY Audiophile community.

Katana has generally been praised of being an extremely well sounding DAC, and I wrote my review concluding that:
– It was not for everyone, as it’s inherently more complicated to operate than any other I2S DAC for Raspberry PI.
– It sounded very very good, but its hyper-analytical sound signature was somehow fatiguing

After just 2 weeks after its initial launch, Allo stopped sales of the DAC explaining they needed to tweak it further. Reactions ranged from sympathizing with Allo’s decision to extreme disappointment.

Now, the moment has arrived and Allo has resumed sales of their Katana 1.2. And expectations did not fade. End of previous episodes.

I received the new Katana about a week ago. Unfortunately, due to personal reasons I could not spend all the time I would have liked with it, but I totaled some 10 hours of listening sessions anyway.

I still need and want to spend more time with it, but I want to share my initial impressions.

As some of you might already know, Katana is in fact made up by 3 components: the actual DAC board, a Microcontroller board, and an output stage.

Allo decided for their second revision to offer 2 different choices of output stage: THD (which from what I understood is tuned to achieve maximum fidelity) and Sound Quality (which instead is somehow tweaked to a more euphonic signature). I won’t judge this choice, all that I did was listen to Katana with both output stages.

First, let’s clarify one thing: Katana 1.2 has a slightly different sound signature to me than the previous version. My only (but big) complaint with the previous version was that it’s hyper-detailed presentation resulted easily very fatiguing. This new version, luckily, is less fatiguing when compared to the original Katana. This effect was particularly evident in my studio setup (a monitor-like nearfield setup) where the previous version was very very hard on my ears, while with the new one I easily listened for many hours. Katana still offers the most detailed presentation I was ever to witness from a DAC. Praat is still fantastic. The lower end still is great (maybe even better in this revision).

It seems then from my initial impressions that Allo managed to solve the fatiguing issue without compromising on other aspects like detail and Praat. Still, the level of detail (personal opinion here) might sometime feel still too much. I still have some sort of mixed feeling about that. Before Katana, I thought to be the kind of Audiophile which likes a high level of details. Now I am not so sure.

Regarding the two output stages: I noticed a slight difference among them, and my favorite is the Sound Quality one. I am not sure for which reason as I could not identify a clear distinction among the two.

All in all I think that the tweaks that Allo made to Katana were positive and worth the wait. I appreciate them taking responsibility of their mistakes (they offered outstanding support to every single Katana customer, and I know many reactions were far from friendly). Still Katana is not a DAC for anyone: besides the complicacy of operating it (which however can be overcome with as much as 20 minutes of careful manual reading) I have the strong feeling that this will mainly suit the tastes Audiophiles with a strong preference for hyper-detail, while it might disappoint those who do not.

I will share further impressions in a future update.

Test Tracks:
Pink Floyd – Money (flac 24/96)
Stevie Wonder – Higher Ground (flac 24/96)
The Alan Parsons Project – Mammagamma (flac 16/44)
Tame Impala – Why won’t they talk to me? (flac 16/44)
Vivaldi – Le 4 stagioni – L’estate (flac 16/44)
CCCP – Allarme (flac 16/44)
Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Sir Psycho Sexy (flac 16/44)
Radiohead – Everything in its right place (flac 16/44)
Daft Punk – Giorgio by Moroder (flac 16/44)
Led Zeppelin – Since I’ve been loving you (flac 16/44)
Io sono un cane – Il corpo del reato (mp3 320)
Alabama Shakes – Don’t Wanna Fight (flac 16/44)
Sebastien Tellier – La Ritournelle (flac 16/44)
The Dave Brubeck Quartet – Take five (DSD64)
Yonderboi – No Answer from Petrograd (flac 16/44)
Ezio Bosso – Unconditioned, following a bird “Out of the Room” (flac 16/44)
Bob Dylan – Mr. Tambourine Man (DSD64)
Moderat – A New Error (flac 16/44)
Richard Wagner – The Ride of the Valkyries (DSD128)
The Rolling Stones – Sister Morphine (flac 16/44)
The Whitest Boy Alive – Island (flac 16/44)
Moon Duo – I’ve been gone (flac 16/44)
Royksopp – Remind Me (flac 16/44)
The Rapture – In the grace of your love (flac 16/44)
Pink Floyd – Wish you were here (flac 24/96)
Waldeck – Dope Noir (flac 16/44)
Rino Gaetano – E la vecchia salta con l’asta (flac 16/44)
Kraftwerk – Das Modell (flac 16/44)
Muse – New Born  (flac 16/44)
Nina Simone – I put a spell on you  (flac 16/44)
The Prodigy – Breathe (flac 16/44)
Tom Waits – Romeo is bleeding (flac 16/44)

My Setups

Main
Amp: Naim Nait 5i
Speakers: Sonus Faber Toy Tower

Studio
Amp: QUAD Artera
Speakers: Axiom Audio M3

The post ALLO Katana DAC Review appeared first on Volumio.

I work with a lot of different playback systems whilst supporting bliss and the one thing they have in common is a requirement to get your library organization right. That’s a subtle requirement; in general, music will play fine. But to get the most out of a music system it’s best to make sure your library is correctly organized. That includes Volumio.

Volumio offers a bunch of handy helpers to work around music library inconsistencies and incompleteness. For example, a cover art downloader is built into Volumio to automatically populate missing album artwork (in the UI; files are unaffected). But still, your Volumio experience can be improved by following a few simple rules to improve your library.

In this article, I’ll demonstrate some of these rules, and then show how bliss can be used to implement fixes.

Cover art

To some, cover art is an irrelevance. To many though it’s an essential part of a digital music collection; it helps with selecting and finding music as well as its enjoyment whilst playing.

Volumio first looks for artwork in an image file inside an album folder, and then, if enabled, inside a music file (cover art can be embedded inside a music file). If that fails, Volumio can look up the artwork online.

Here’s an example library I put together:

Looking good, except for that pesky missing cover art for Electric Music’s North London Spiritualist Church. These types of gaps can be frustrating!

The fix is to find the artwork yourself, and save the image with one of the following names in the album folder:

coverart
albumart
cover
Cover
folder
Folder

The images can be in either PNG or JPEG format with the usual file extensions, .png or .jpg respectively. The first character can be capitalized, as can the entire file extension.

Alternatively, I’ll show how to fix it with bliss later on.

Multi-artist compilations

Scroll down the list and it gets worse – my library is totally disorganized:

We can see an album has been split by its track artists. This is common in a lot of music players, such as iTunes.

The cause is that the album’s track artist varies from track to track. The fix is to either set one consistent artist for all tracks or (and this is better) to set an ALBUM ARTIST field for all tracks. Another approach is to mark the tracks as being within a compilation using the COMPILATION tag.

You can do this with any music tagger, common ones used as MP3Tag (Windows) or Kid3 (Mac); again I’ll show how to do this with bliss later.

Multi-disc albums

Multi-disc albums are those where the album contains multiple media in one of the release formats, such as multiple CDs. If you’ve ripped from a CD then, chances are, the files are separated by CD. If the album name tags are the same for both rips, this means the tracks will be grouped together, which is probably what you want; after all, it’s the same album.

However, if there’s no way of distinguishing that the tracks came from separate media then the ordering of the tracks will be mixed up. Here’s what Elvis Costello’s The Very Best of Elvis Costello looks like for me:

The track listing is wrong; it starts (What’s So Funny ‘Bout)… from disc one, which is correct, but the next track should be Oliver’s Army. Instead, tracks one and two from disc two interject.

There are two main solutions. The first, less acceptable one, is to simply rename the albums, splitting them, e.g. “The Very Best of Elvis Costello (Disc One)“. However, this loses the canonical spelling of the album and may make things like album art lookup more difficult.

The better solution is to add DISCNUMBER tags, set to 1 and 2 for the tracks in each of the discs respectively. Again, music taggers like MP3Tag can do this, alternatively I’ll be fixing it in bliss below.

Setting bliss up

bliss is a bit different to the other music taggers I mentioned. The latter tend to provide an interface to change what you like in music files, with some batch actions. bliss is different; instead you specify which constraints you want your library to obey. You do this by defining rules. From there it does the same job as a ‘vanilla’ music tagger: it writes to the tags inside music files.

There are many advantages to this; beyond the fact that there’s simply less work to do this way, it’s a better longer term solution because the same rules can be continually applied as a library develops.

That’s all a bit abstract, so applying this to this discussion, we can define rules from what we have learnt above (plus adding a bit of interpretation and determinism):

• Cover art should be called Folder This is a good choice for interoperability with older versions of Windows.
• Only JPEGs and PNGs are permitted.
• We want to use ‘canonical’ album artists.
• We want to use canonical album names.
• We want to ensure the DISCNUMBER field is populated.

Once bliss is installed, you can set it up. Click the settings cog, and enable the rules we have defined above. First, click the ON/OFF button for Cover art and enable the rule:

Now onto the bliss Tags rule. Click ON/OFF under Tags

Here we’ve specified we want canonical album and artist names, and also we require the DISCNUMBER and COMPILATION fields to be populated.

Once the settings are complete, you can begin bliss’s scan by clicking Apply Rules. At this point, bliss starts scanning the library. bliss will automatically fill in missing cover art, but all other actions can only be automated if an automation option is presented in the settings.

Once each album completes its scan, it is marked as being Compliant or Non-Compliant against your rules.

As the missing cover art rule is fully automatic, that missing cover art is filled in for us:

The Atlantic Soul album is marked non-compliant; not only is the disc number not part of the canonical album name, but the overall album name is incorrect too. In addition it’s not marked as a Compilation as it should be:

I’ll click the fix buttons to make the album compliant. In addition, I’ll set “Various” as the ALBUM ARTIST for this album using the web based tag editor:

Finally, on to our single artist, multi disc album. When checking the album detail page for The Very Best of Elvis Costello we see options to set the disc numbers to make sure playing order is preserved:

Clicking the Grouped fixes brings the album back into compliance.

Back to Volumio!

Click My Music from the settings cog, then the Update button to re-scan the changed music files. Occasionally you may need a full Rescan.

The cover art is now correctly completed:

The multi-disc album is no longer split:

And finally The Very Best of Elvis Costello now has a correctly ordered tracklist:

I hope that gives an idea of how bliss can help organize your Volumio music library!

BLISS HW WEBSITE

The post How to get a perfectly organized Music Library: a guide by Bliss founder Dan Gravell appeared first on Volumio.

The Volumio team is proud to present you MyVolumio.

MyVolumio is the brainchild of a dream we had since few years: emancipate our beloved Volumio Audiophile player from being just accessible on the local network, and make it communicate with the world out there.
To make what, you might be asking.

To extend Volumio capabilities. To make Volumio smarter. To make Volumio better in new ways, and most important: to make ourselves enjoy more our music.

So, let’s go straight to the point: we’ve been working hard for almost 2 years to make something which we think will evolve Volumio by a great shot.

And guess what, we called it MyVolumio because we have plenty of creativity, and we wanted to be truly yours, Volumio user.

WHAT IS MYVOLUMIO

In a nutshell, myVolumio is:

– A premium paid subscription service which extends Volumio’s capabilities
– It’s available in 3 tiers: free, Virtuoso and Superstar
– It’s not mandatory, and never will be, to enjoy Volumio (which will remain free and open source)
– Awesome

You will be able to access MyVolumio directly from Volumio’s Web Interface or by navigating to myvolumio.org

WHY WE MADE MYVOLUMIO

It always felt to us that Volumio needed an evolutionary leap: it’s just great, but it could have been better with a Cloud Service supporting it, allowing it to integrate smoothly with online and cloud music service. Let’s face it: this is where digital music is going.

Music in increasingly dematerializing and it’s getting more and more fragmented into a plethora of online services, and a Music Player which has some ambitions must be capable of fetching every kind of music from every kind of service.

Then, the way we currently use Volumio, via browser from a local network is great. We imagined that it could have been even better, for example by allowing control of it even without being connected to your home network, or from anywhere you are.

Last, the single most requested features were streaming services support like QOBUZ and Tidal, and we simply could not have been able to deliver them without a wider approach which involved some additions to Volumio as we know it.

HOW DOES MYVOLUMIO WORK

Basically, you will be able to crete an account on MyVolumio (like you do with every other service in the world) which will allow you to experience some pretty good stuff nicely integrated in your Volumio player.

After you created your account, MyVolumio can be accessed in 2 ways: directly from the Volumio UI or via myvolumio.org . You will retain the same functionalities in both modes, and when you’re not connected to your network you can access MyVolumio (and your associated devices) from Myvolumio.org.

That’s it.

You’ll notice a profile tab on the usual settings menu, and by going to your profile you can choose which device to connect, edit your profile settings or upgrade your subscription in any moment.

From there, you will be able to subscribe on our 3 subscription tiers, which offer different levels of features:

FREE
That’s your entry point here, feel free to look around and experiment. By signing in for the free account you will be part of the family, and we’re working hard to bring some cool feature for the free tier as soon as possible (suggestions are very welcome).

VIRTUOSO
That’s where it gets interesting: you get the full MyVolumio experience for one device. We expect this to be the ideal choice for all of you which have only one Volumio player, but want more from it.

SUPERSTAR
It can’t get any better. You get the full MyVolumio experience (same features as the Virtuoso plan) but for up to 6 devices together, which you can use at the same time. So if you’re like me and you’ve basically a Volumio player in every corner of the house, you will be able to control them all from one convenient place.

As you will read later, we are releasing MyVolumio initially as an Open Beta, to gather your feedback and to make it ready for prime time.

This gives also us a chance to show you what we have in mind and what can be achieved with it. Let’s view what MyVolumio introduces:

STREAMING SERVICES SUPPORT

The single most asked question has been: when do we get other streaming services support (namely TIDAL and QOBUZ). Well, we’ve worked really hard since day 1 of Volumio2 development to bring such functionalities.
It turned out to be an extremely complex task, due to legal requirements and technical challenge. So the only way we could make it happen has been creating a cloud service to support them. This is in fact, how we started working on what has later become MyVolumio. So yes, we’ve laid the groundwork for every major streaming service support. And the good news is that we have a great one from day 1.

QOBUZ VOLUMIO INTEGRATION IS AVAILABLE WITH MYVOLUMIO

We’ve worked closely with QOBUZ to make it happen, and we finally made it. I must admit it has not been easy in the beginning, but in the process I really saw the tremendous improvement this Music Service has done over the last year and I am pretty sure it will become the first choice of many.

What I really love about QOBUZ is their editorial selection (which is beautifully presented in MyVolumio). It’s definitely a great way to discover music, for all tastes. Well done on that.

Last but not least, directly from MyVolumio you can receive a 30 days free trial from QOBUZ, so you don’t have more excuses for not trying it.

REMOTE VOLUMIO CONTROL

And when I say remote, I mean it. With MyVolumio you can add as much as 6 Volumio players into a single account, and control them directly even if you’re not connected to your home network. Even if you’re not in the same city.
Even from a different continent (yeah, that’s not quite useful I know).

But this is a great advantage if you want to have all your playback endpoints available in a single glance without messing with IP address or network issues.
Not to mention that we use an end-to-end encrypted connection, so you get a pretty big bonus in security.

MYVOLUMIO ROLLOUT MASTERPLAN

As I already anticipated, we are relesing MyVolumio as an Open Beta, until we hammer it to perfection. This is our plan:

Phase 1: Open Beta

Even if we worked on MyVolumio for more than 18 months as of now, we need to make sure everything runs as good as our community deserves. This means addressing every possible residual misbehavior MyVolumio has.
So, we decided to relase MyVolumio initially as an Open Beta to validate our Cloud infrastructure, to see how well it performs under reasonable loads and to make it as stable as possible.

As some of you know, Volumio counts about 150k users: and serving such a potentially wide crowd is something to be taken seriously. Phasing out the load our infrastructure is the soundest choice to get us prepared for the big show.

This is why we deiced to release MyVolumio in this Open Beta stage. What it means is:
– We will provide a limited amount of Voucher codes for people to try it for free. We will offer about 50 voucher codes every week to gradually increase the load on the system. This does not mean that this beta is closed:  everyone can subscribe to MyVolumio service, but we want to offer the possibility to enjoy it for free to our community members, while they are willing to give us a hand by reporting suggestions, feedbacks and bug reports. Voucher codes have a limited duration of 2 months.

– We are starting with a limited set of functionalities, in order to perfect them and focus on having few but robust additional features. Namely:

– Secure Remote connection from anywhere to your Volumio player.
– Full QOBUZ support

We will be adding in this phase also:
– Automatic syncing and backup of Favourites, My Webradios, WebRadio Favourites and Playlists
– Another very famous Hi-Res Streaming service (it ends with L) integration

Last but not least, we want to listen to what our beloved community has to say about this work we’ve been doing behind the curtains for so long. Our vision is to create a set of cloud-based additional features that improve the listening experience with Volumio, and we’re eager to know if we actually made something relevant for you guys.

Before focusing on moving forward with more functions, we want to know if this is a good direction or if there is something we should reconsider, and how.
The single most important feature that MyVolumio is asked to serve is to improve the experience of people like us, who just love to listen and discover exciting music. We’ve done our part, now it’s your time to say what you think about it.

You can leave your feedbacks in the MyVolumio Feedback thread

This initial Phase will last for likely a couple of months, and we will then progress to official release, expansion and community driven development. More info on the MyVolumio 101 thread.

Last, but not least we want to make it very clear that Volumio is and will remain always free and Open Source.

MyVolumio is a set of additional premium capabilities which are not mandatory at all to enjoy Volumio.
We will retain all current features as Free and Open, and we will also add new one in this scheme. In parallel, we will be adding new and new features to MyVolumio.

It’s very important to note that if you love the Volumio project, MyVolumio is the perfect way to sustain it financially, and get a pretty good features bonus in return.

If you’re still here after this huge post, then it means you really want to try MyVolumio! During the Beta Stage we will offer special MyVolumio images for download, which are separate from Volumio standard release cycle. You can find all the informations on the following link:

MYvolumio.org – This is where you login on MyVolumio

MYVOLUMIO 101 FORUM THREAD – Refer to this thread to stay up to date with everything regarding MyVolumio and to download the current release

MYVOLUMIO BETA VOUCHER CODES – Check this periodically for 2 months of free MyVolumio Service

MYVOLUMIO FAQs – Everything you want to know about MyVolumio

MYVOLUMIO TECHNICAL OVERVIEW – For the Geek in you, see how we developed MyVolumio

We really hope you will enjoy MyVolumio as much as we enjoyed developing it.

A new era for Volumio has just started…

The post MyVolumio: the new Audiophile cloud echosystem for Music Lovers appeared first on Volumio.

GET NOW YOUR NEW RASPBERRY PI 3 B+ FROM VOLUMIO SHOP

Before moving any further, it’s however important to note that this is not a brand-new product or a radical evolution of our beloved PI, but rather an incremental upgrade. So, if you’re still struggling to decide whether this upgrade is worth for your music listening habits, I’m here to help with some considerations.

Please note that we’re still testing the new Raspberry PI 3 B+, and those considerations are based on official statements of the Foundation, we’ll update this article as soon as our tests are done.

WHAT IS CHANGED

The hardware makeover of the Raspberry PI model 3 B+ covers basically 3 areas:

• Slightly faster processor
• Better thermal management
• Networking

As we will see later, what really matters for us is indirectly related to point number 3: networking. But let’s see in detail all the 3 main upgrade areas.

PROCESSOR

The new Raspberry PI 3 B+ is built around BCM2837B0, an updated version of the BCM2837 processor used in Raspberry Pi 3B. The most notable change is that processor speed bumps from 1.2 GHz to 1.4 GHz. As always, GHz are just a small part of the whole picture, and those extra 200 MHz are surely welcome, but surely not a gamechanger over the previous generation.

The foundation reports a real-life performance improvement ranging from 15% to 30%, but I would not expect to see a substancial difference while using Volumio. A potential impacting side-effect is however how this chip (and the whole board layout) dissipates heat, so let’s move to the next point.

THERMAL MANAGEMENT
The BCM2837B0 SOC incorporates power integrity optimisations, and a heat spreader (see the metal bit in the pictures?). Cleverly, the foundation used such features to get higher clock speeds, when temperature is below 70 degrees, and to throttle the processor only in extreme cases. Also, thanks to the on-board heat-spreader, thermal performance has improved.

Heat is not coming out only from CPU’s top, but it’s rather spreaded on the whole PCB, therefore applying an additional heatsink is not necessary anymore (and IMHO it wasn’t necessary with model 3 as well). It appears then, that the PI 3 B+ has been designed to be very well suited for long-time operations, even in confined spaces, without the need for an external heatsink.
The only downside I can see here is that, the Raspberry PI foundation itself claims that ” Raspberry Pi 3B+ does consume substantially more power than its predecessor. We strongly encourage you to use a high-quality 2.5A power supply”.

This means, more than ever, that a good quality Power Supply is mandatory for stable operations, and if you’re using a sub-optimal PSU with your current Raspberry, you absolutely need to replace it along with it.

NETWORKING

This to me looks like the real deal. Finally the PI gets Gigabit ethernet, altough it’s connected via an USB 2.0 BUS so it’s not the same “Gigabit” you’ll find on its competitor. But 10\100 was more than enough for audio use, so this is not a matter of concern.

On the Wireless side we also find finally 5.0 GHz and wireless AC. This is indeed a notable improvement: while the extra speed of AC is not much of a deal-breaker, it is the AC protocol in itself. As you might know, the main issue wiht N (and 2.4 GHz) wireless is usually the overcrowded signal range (it has only 13 bands of frequencies available, and if you live in a crowded area your WiFi is most likely to suck due to congestions). AC wireless instead, has an awful lot more of channels, therefore virtually minimizing the chance of bad wireless networking due to congestion. Of course, you will be able to benefit from AC networking ONLY if you already have an AC capable wireless Access Point.

However, none of those 3 points might be necessary to trigger your compulsive upgrade (BTW, the PI 3 Model B+ is available now from our store), if it wasn’t for a side effect.

THE NEW USB HUB

Hidden within the new specs, comes a very interesting part. Quoting:

“Previous Raspberry Pi devices have used the LAN951x family of chips, which combine a USB hub and 10/100 Ethernet controller. For Raspberry Pi 3B+, Microchip have supported us with an upgraded version, LAN7515, which supports Gigabit Ethernet.”

This means that the new PI 3 B+ features a new USB HUB chip,  and this might put an end to the PI’S first flaw in Audio-related usage, the USB bus package loss issue. If confirmed (we’re carrying out our tests and will update this article once done) this would be the absolute cherry-on-the-cake of this new Raspberry PI Model B+, and might justify alone the upgrade.

We are now testing this new hardware and we will upgrade this article with more definitive conclusions (so what you read above are speculations on what can be understood from PRs and Foundation’s statements). In any case my early conclusion is:

The new Raspberry PI 3 B+ is a worth upgrade, especially if you listen to Music via USB DAC or if you use Volumio with a wireless connection.

For those of you eagerly waiting to get their hands on the new Raspberry PI 3 B+, it’s available now from our shop!

GET NOW YOUR NEW RASPBERRY PI 3 B+ FROM VOLUMIO SHOP

POST UPDATE:

I’ve lived with the new Raspberry PI B+ for a couple of days and done some careful testing on it. Of course, my main interest was to back my hypothesis of better USB Audio performances, so I went straight ahead and connected my Pro-Ject Pre BOX S2 Digital (since it can reach up to 32\768 via USB and play DSD 512 in Native mode).

All tests were made with the experimental image that can be found  here

As usual, I started playing my “Raspberry killer” track: a 32 bit, 678 kHz .wav file from my NAS. And… What a terrible disappointment: loads of crackles and a whole lot of lost packets.
Tried then with DSD, 24/192 flacs, and even 16/44.1 flacs. All sounded just terrible. So, indeed the new USB BUS did change USB Audio performances, unfortunately, it did for the worst.

Luckily though, I then tried to play the same files from a USB drive (and not from a NAS), and magic happened: spotless playback up to 32\768. Seemed that taking ethernet (I was connected on wired connection) out of the equation did the trick. So connected the PI via wifi and restarted without ethernet: same result, HI-Res Music playback was just perfect to my USB DAC.

So, it seems that there is still some issue (hopefully it’s driver related) to the Ethernet controller, which seems to give up lots of packets in high-bandwidth situations. I am however pretty confident that the foundation will solve this issue, as it’s not uncommon that hardware performances get dramatic improvements as software gets tuned up after community feedbacks.

The good news is that there are actually tangible improvements on USB throughput, as I did not experience a single glitch with a great variety of files: 16\44.1,24\96,32\768 flac, DSD64, DSD128, DSD256 and 8X MQA (this is an extremely meaningful test, since if even a single packet is lost the MQA decoding would stop).

So, for now, if you avoid using Ethernet to retrieve your Hi-Res files, the PI 3B+is just perfect to feed your USB DAC with bit-perfect joy.

During my tests, also some other meaningful results emerged, I will summarize them for your convenience:

• The Volumio experience did indeed benefit by the extra horsepowers of the new SOC, the overall UI responsiveness is noticeably better
• Wireless transfer speeds are way better, even when using 2.4 GHz radio. The new Antenna design (that would deserve an article on its own) seems to do the job much better than the previous one (I was able to get the 32/768 .wav file from NAS without a glitch).
• The system had no problem whatsoever in resampling any kind of file to 32 bits and 768 kHz with SOXR quality set to very high (and system load stayed on about 30%), this result is in itself impressive (try to do the same on a PI3…).
• Power consumption has increased with respect to the previous generation: idling the PI3B+ needs about 2.1 W, and takes about 3,5 W on higher loads

The next round of tests will involve playback via I2S DACs, although I  do not expect any difference compared with previous PIs.

So, all in all, I think this upgrade is definitely more than welcome, although it will not constitute a major reason to upgrade for existing Raspberry PI 3 owners.

The only situations where I am suggesting the upgrade are wireless setups: in this case, yes, upgrading is well worth the cost.

[products skus=”RPI3BPLUS,EAR2718,Pi-CASE+VOED,ACRICASE”]

As always, getting stuff from our shop, not only gets you awesome bang for the buck Audio equipment, but helps the Volumio project, so thanks for your purchase!

The post The new Raspberry PI 3B+ audio-related review appeared first on Volumio.

Well, that would be considered the ultimate I2S DAC when it comes to convenience. And that’s exactly what the NanoSound DAC does: it is an excellent sounding i2s DAC (same chip as Hifiberry DAC Plus) but with some uber-interesting extra features.

It features:

• integrated  OLED display for now-playback informations,
• 6 buttons for controls (next, previous, pause\ play, volume + and minus, power on\off)
• handy infrared remote control, with plenty of available control options (you can even turn the player on and off)

Also, thanks to its optional Amplifier, you can use your NanoSound Player to drive your loudspeakers without the need of a second Power supply (it’s so efficient that it can squeeze out 5W from a single 5V power supply, and power the raspberry PI, Display and amplifier with it).

Frankly, as soon as I saw it, I immediately fell in love with it: as you know I am really convinced that a big deal of the music listening experience is how you actually interact with the player, and the NanoSound gives plenty of options to interact with the player without even touching a phone or a PC. I know there are many people out there which would feel more comfortable in interacting with Volumio with physical buttons, or with a remote control.

Not to mention that this is the only DAC for the Raspberry PI which integrates an on\off switch. And it just works, even remotely with the IR control.

Last but not least: an OLED display that reports playback informations in real time.

And what about the sound? Nothing to worry about as it uses the widely adopted TI PCM5122 (the same used by Hifiberry DAC+). It’s not a giant when it comes to sound quality, but it’s indeed an excellent sounding package.

The NanoSound has been launched on Kickstarter (achieving a great success, kudos!) and when I saw it I immediately thought it could be the best all-round complete player with Volumio.

That’s why we partnered with NanoMesher to provide to Volumio users a complete, ready to play device: welcome the NanoSound Player.

You can tailor it to your needs: choose to have it with a case (black or white) and if you want, you can add the Amp to it. It will come to you ready to play and no further software fiddling will be needed: just install the companion plugin and the Infrared button, display and buttons will just work.

Nostalgics of SqueezeBox, buttons aficionados, remote control lovers: the NanoSound Player is the ready-to-play Volumio device for you. And this is the device I can mostly recommend to people curious to try Volumio and Raspberry PI as their audio player but they are frightened about it to be too complicated.

And the good news are not over: you can receive up to a 20% discount on the NanoSound by simply writing an honest review on it

As usual you can find the NanoSound Player on our shop or, if you already have a raspberry PI, you can just have the NanoSound DAC

The post NanoSound Player: the most convenient Volumio complete player appeared first on Volumio.

As I’ve said many times: it’s a wonderful time to be an Audiophile. The Raspberry PI has brought back lot of the fun we were missing with digital players, and I still remember that people used to laugh when back in the days I was writing that the PI could be a serious Audophile Media Player.

Luckily, time is a gentleman and it’s now widely accepted that thanks to this little computer we can build a very good Audiophile Music Streamer at a fraction of the cost of comparable commercial solutions. There is no doubt that the best way to maximize its potential is hooking it to a good I2S DAC. And I must admit I considered this the most sensible way to use the PI: thanks to I2S short path of communication, the signal would go straight from the Raspberry PI processor to the DAC, which is on paper the best way to do it (if we don’t mention the jitter problem… but that’s for another day).

So, of course I was  totally uninterested of another kind of I2S HATS (an hat is a little board that you snap on top of the Raspberry PI, and I2S DAC are part of this family): the transport HATS. Basically those HATs instead of producing an Analog signal (which you can use directly to feed your amplifier) do produce a S/PDIF digital signal, that is suitable for any S/PDIF external DAC.
The main reason was that many external (and expensive) DACs would also have a USB input: so why bother using S/PDIF? Considering also the fact that the digital signal goes trough multiple interfaces before being received by the external DAC?

But then came Allo DigiOne, and I needed to rethink my position on SPDIF transports.

What is the Allo DigiOne

The Allo DigiOne is a Raspberry PI HAT (see above) that directly connects on top of a Raspberry PI. The DigiOne takes the audio signal straight out from the I2S connection available on the Raspberry PI, and outputs an S/PDIF digital signal that can be fed into any S/PDIF external DAC.

There are many S/PDIF Hats out there that achieve the very same result than the DigiOne, but the DigiOne has several aces up its sleeve that make it probably the best S/PDIF transport HAT there is.
I’ve already written an extended review here, and here’s the sum of what makes the DigiOne so special:

• DigiOne has 2 high quality onboard Clocks, therefore its immune by the Raspberry PI I2S jitter problems.
• It applies a meticoulous filtering process on the DC coming from the Raspberry PI
• It isolates each stage of the signal path with a galvanic isolator  separating the Raspberry PI from the clocks and the clocks from the S/PDIF transmitter

Allo themselves quote that the DigiOne, in fact, is “a master codec with digital/electrical/ground isolation from RPI AND wm8805 and a reclocker”.

All the above means that the Digione truly is the most advanced and better sounding S/PDIF transport HAT currently available. As you can read in my review: this is the only S/PDIF transport that gave me comparable results than USB connection (with iFi iPurifier2), and that in itself is quite an achievement.

This is an extract of my full review:

I tried it on 3 “good enough” DACs, which I usually use connected via USB, in order to compare the outcome of the total chain.
I was impressed: never thought S/PDIF could sound that good. My previous experiences were with other shields and there is a very evident difference. Especially for the things I do care about: detail, soundstage and musicality.

Basically, for me at least, the DigiOne has become the only S/PDIF source that I would have in my system. I find the same level of enjoyment that I do have with the Mini86 and ipurifier (on the same DAC, but connected with its XMOS based USB receiver). I won’t be making any further comparison because it will be like comparing apple and oranges (the implementation of the USB Receiver and S/PDIF receiver of the same DAC can be of different quality level).

So, sonically speaking, well done Allo: this is the only S/PDIF I managed to actually like.

Now, what I don’t like about this. I would have preferred to have a way to feed the DigiOne and the Pi separately. Allo claims there is no need (and they are probably right, considering the DC regulators and galvanic isolation) but I think this is anyway a Nice to have feature.

So my conclusion is: the DigiOne is expensive when compared to similar solution, but it’s definitely worth every penny of it. What we have here is something that was not designed to sound good, but to sound as best as possible (on Raspberry PI), and this is not yet another case of over-engineering: they made clear design choices which my listening impressions confirm to be correct.

The DigiOne Player, a complete system based on Allo DigiOne and Volumio

If you’re scared that all the above means also that it’s very complicated to enjoy the DigiOne, well, keep on reading. I am writing this article because I’ve been asked many many times from people who were curious to try Volumio, but did not know where to start. Therefore there’s my suggestion: if you want a no-fuss, great sounding S/PDIF Audiophile Music Player / Streamer, this is your best chance to get the right one.

Basically, this can be seen as the quickest way to enter into the revolution of Raspberry PI based audio streamers, and from the main door.

The DigiOne Player contains everything you need:

• Allo DigiOne S/PDIF transport Shield
• Raspberry PI 3
• Allo Acrylic Case
• 8GB Micro SD Card with Volumio preinstalled
• 5v Power Supply

The Allo DigiOne Player can be purchased from our Shop, and every purchase will contribute to the sustainability of the Volumio Project.

For those of you who already have the Allo DigiOne Player, let us know how you like it via comments below, or if you have any question regarding this complete player, just ask!

[product sku=”DGONEPLAYER”]

The post Allo DigiOne Player is probably the best Volumio based S/PDIF transport appeared first on Volumio.