USB Nervosa Thread Decrapifiers, pro interfaces, and bears oh my

I have been listening to Allo DigiOne with iPower and Schiit Eitr over the weekend via Raspberry Pi 3.
My listening was done via speakers.

The Eitr is quite noticeably more spacious than the DigiOne.
Especially sound-stage depth and height is quite a bit larger than the DigiOne.
It is a bit softer sounding too, but still seems to have all the details. Bass seems a bit rounder than it should be. Going directly into my RME DAC with USB, gave a sound very similar too the Eitr. (RME USB is said to be pretty good).
The DigiOne does seems to be a bit better on transients, or perhaps its just a bit more dry.
This makes it seems a bit more dynamic.
I tired more quickly from it than the EItr, so I will probably keep the Eitr for a while and sell the DigiOne.
The DigiOne feels a bit more matter of fact and the soundstage stays more compact than the Eitr.
With headphones the outcome might be be totally different and with different gear who knows...
Looking forward to testing the DigiOne Signature at some point.

 

As I have tried both Eitr and Digione Signature and posted my impressions in Network Player thread. I have this question once I experienced that transports have their own sound " Is this getting more complicated as I have to look for system synergy by adding transport as one extra factor? Or this doesnt matter at all?

Looking forward for Signature+ other dacs impressions because I know each dac's spdif implimentations ain't created equal.

 

@Taverius is right.
Both wi-fi and wired network connections on RPi are just hidden USB dongles. Use different output if you can. Digi+ or Digi+ pro are not that expensive. Of course you will need a DAC with SPDIF. Bryston build a BDP-Pi player around the Hifiberry Digi+ Pro platform for a reason.

And USB from RPI is a turd.

 

The DigiOne/Schiit Eitr both sounds better than the Hifiberry Digi+ did in my system.
I would not bother with the Hifiberry if I had Generation 5 on a Schiit DAC.

 

too true, the Broadcom SB which is used for the Pis has one Bus only for Ethernet and US(B). That seriously limits bandwith and leads to the crappy performance via USB. Depending on the software you want to run on your transport/streamer there are better choices. You could use an Odroid C1+ (Pi 2 equivalent) or C2 (Pi 3 equivalent). The Odroids are both faster than there Pi equivalent and have seperate buses for Ethernet and US(B). You can run Volumio 2 and RuneAudio on them. Moode does not work and I am not sure about picore player. For me the best because leanest and meanest solution is Archphile. I think Michael is still doing some work on the Odroid C2 platform. Archphile has no dedicated GUI but there are lots of solutions out there for Android and iOS. The advantage of Archphile is that it does not build up config.sys from scratch with every system start (like Volumio 2 and RuneAudio). So if for instance you want to integrate DRC via brutefir it is much easier. If I had not decided that I want to use Qobuz and therefore had to switch to an LMS based solution (Daphile) I would have switched from Odroid C1 to Odroid C2 in order to use the latest Archphile implementation together with brutefir. So if the software you want to use supports the Odroid or any other platform which does not have the same fundamental flaw like the Pi, go for it and crappy USB on turd-level will be something from the past.

 

Currently I use Volumio on RPI. Cannot really comment on the sound as I don't have anything to compare it to (aside from my PC but that's not that great of a source either). Several posters in this and the USB Gen5 thread said that after upgrading to USB 5 differences between sources were minimal (similar thing was said about Eitr as well). I'll keep researching this but so far it seems that even with Gen 5 USB it might be advantageous to use a better source than stock RPI.
Ideally I'd like to have both a stock RPI and a fully pimped out one (or a USBridge) next to each other and switch between them

 

Anyone tried to see how long a digione signature high on four batteries will last? I usually just leave my streamer on all the time, I listen to music sometimes for 6-8 hours in a day. What bummer if I have to keep changing batteries.

 

So i just got a cheap pci-e usb 3.0 card to use with my JDS OL DAC but when i click play it takes up to 4 seconds to start playing the track. Anyone know why there's so much delay? Thanks.

 

That's latency worth worrying about

 

Without knowing any other details, I'm assuming there's some sort of massive buffer built into the playback.

 

Sometimes it takes 1 and 2 seconds to play, there's also weird clicks and noises. I'm using the OL DAC with a magni 3 and hd580, ad2000, dt150 headphones.

My PC specs:
WIndows 10 64 bits
i7 7700k
ASUS Z270-K motherboard
16gb ram
RX480

My OL DAC works just fine on the usb 3.1 port of my motherboard. I even did a clean install of windows 10 and it didn't solve anything. The PCI-E card looks very generic with 4 usb 3.0 ports, all i know it uses VIA chipset.

I tried my HIFIMEDIY U2 async usb sabre dac and to my surprise it works without issues (no noise and delay in sound), it sounds quite a bit better than my motherboard usb ports. This dac is usb powered and the usb cable is very short (10 cm). The OL DAC comes with a 90 cm monoprice cable, i bought a wireworld usb chroma cable (1 meter long) and it didn't solve the delay issues. I'm wondering if it has to do with the length of the usb cables or the OL DAC usb chip is just not compatible with this pci-e card with VIA chipset.

Anyways, i ordered another pci-e card with RENESAS chipset let's see if it will work.

 

Probably the combination of the PCI card and the DAC's Savitech interface not playing along properly.

 

Few pages back I asked a question, who's going to win sourceproof usb input on a schiit dac or terrible usb output of raspberrypi. I think I have an answer now.
I unplugged he Yggdrasil from my raspberrypi and plugged it into a dedicated (not shared with any other device) usb controller on my motherboard and fired up a VM with WIndows and desktop Tidal app.

Whatever impact virtualization has on performance of usb ports it is nothing compared to how raspberrypi fucks up a digital signal. The dynamics, imaging, detail, everything is better compared to stock rpi. And we are comparing it with a regular desktop pc, running stock tidal app (so not that great either). If anybody else ever comes to this thread and ask if schiit usb gen 5 are immune to raspberry pi's terrible output, the answer is no.

 

Has anyone tried any of these cheap-o USB galvanic isolators? Or this guy on Amazon for a bit more money?

 

I havent tried these but i am also curious about them. my ifi idefender is only effective in eliminating ground loop problems in active mode when it is powered by 5V. but these and also many others like Intona seem to be completely passive, I'm wondering if their principle of operation is different.

 

In the time before Gen5 USB I tried one based on ADuM4160. It didn't help at all, for me, at the time. I'm not sure what the root cause of my problem was, but upgrading Gungnir to Gen 5 USB solved it.

 

i just placed an order for this, : was curious to see how it affects the PC that i use as source and has been having ground noise issues.



https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GB4CQQ3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1