Network Players - Streamers Impressions and Reviews

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by drgumbybrain, Nov 14, 2018.

  1. Raicorl

    Raicorl Acquaintance

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    I brifely wrote this and too lazy to prove-read twice, sorry if I didnt quite get to the point.


    From my experience, noisy PC leads to doom for me...even my Eitr cannot escape this. After read Hand's opinion(s) about USB and figured how to effectively utilize Roon. I bought the Signature Player.

    My setup PC > Lan to Signature Player as Roon endpoint > aq forest coaxial > modi multibit > mcth+lps
    PC > wifi to Surface 3 as Roon endpoint( I kill every startup and unused processes as much as possible)>Pangea USB> Eitr> the rest are same.


    I use only 2 smps Allo provided, my aliexpress LPS has not even shipped yet. prop to Allo for very fast and low cost shipping. Everything is well packed. Zero config,
    Plug and Play.

    im gonna compare with songs I used to listen to recently, so Please dont hate me for my music taste.


    Postmodern Jukebox's Seven nation army cover and most slow rhythm music, I like Eitr with dreamy vocal (for now, I think its a little bit too soft for me) after I have solved my Eitr dropout I can listen through the whole album no problem but for fast rhythm genere it felt just 'acceptable' for me, trumpet, trombone,horns sound are kinda weird.
    I first, blame the poor recording due to my poor experience. On the contary, Eitr on most pop modern music is kinda easy-going which I really like, I like how I can keep reading my book without having to skip some tracks.


    Not gonna talk much about bass, I still hated myself when I think bloomy bass and forward mid due to noisy(signal) evironment is a good thing so im gonna assume
    I dont know which is good or bad but I think Signature's bass might go lower than Eitr.


    For swing genre which rhytm get quite abit faster (eg. Postmodern Jukebox's Still into you cover and the rest) Signature out shrine Etir... I dont know how to explain this but Its not a same modi multibit I used to know.
    more dynamic?? more seperation?? I guess, Rick and Morty theme song new arrangement by Scott Bradlee is a lot more intense on Signature. All I can tell is Signature's Vocals are more natural than Etir. May be Signature's coax produce more gain? is this possible?


    Im glad I lurked around the forum since 2/10 of my audiophile journey. found ears, comments I could trust. I think I wont upgrade my current system until some cheap, groundbreaking techs that looks appealing to me.

    edit : My opinion may change as I swap my LPS.
    As tradition: pics or didnt happen. [​IMG]

    in case pic not show up https://imgur.com/a/9E5eFbk
     
  2. Sunflower_sutra

    Sunflower_sutra Acquaintance

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    Things are moving fast with streamers!

    Looks hard to beat value wise
     
  3. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    Me rereading this thread a few times made me get off my butt and restart my "lame" streaming setup: A 5m Amazon USB Cable (kid you not), going into the USB input of the Ayre Codex. I took my cheap-o Amazon Fire 8 that was side-loaded with just enough apps for music, and lower the brightness down on the tablet to the lowest. I set up foobar on my Thinkpad as also being DNLA/Upnp Server, and it works greats. Then I run Bubbleupnp on my tablet and I was all good to go.

    After doing a few tweaks, I got the sound via USB into my Codex to be close to the sound of my CD Player feeding the Codex via Toslink. I still prefer using CDs since it's a physical format, but perhaps I was being too harsh on streaming.

    I don't think the 5m Amazon USB cable is helping, but I don't think getting a long good USB Cable will make too much of a difference. I did noticed that there's newer CD Players/Streamers in one box as of late units. The recently released Marantz ND8006 is a CD Player/DAC/Streamer that's Upnp and DNLA compliant. Also Arcam is back making a CD player with the newly released CDS50 which does SACD/CD and Streaming (but Streaming features is more on the Marnatz).

    I'm not in a rush in getting more equipment right now, but if I had $1,200 laying around I would buy the ND8006 and mess around with it (it even have digital outs so you can just use the unit as a source for everything and shut off the analog outs, I'm still keeping my Codex). It even supports Wi-Fi (which is something I really would prefer right now even if it isn't ideal.
     
  4. ctrlm

    ctrlm New

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    I ordered the Allo Digione Signature today. I have been using an Auralic Aries for years now and I am curious to hear how it compares in my setup, especially after the comments made by Darko and after reading Hands review.
     
  5. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    Let us know when you get it and have time to post impressions, thanks!
     
  6. ctrlm

    ctrlm New

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    It arrives on Monday so I should be able to post some impressions later next week.
     
  7. neogeosnk

    neogeosnk Friend

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    Got an Allo Digione Signature setup as a Roon endpoint paired with an Audiophonics LPSU25 going to an Yggdrasil A2 & a Benchmark Dac3. Will post brief impressions later this week if possible.
     
  8. Poleepkwa

    Poleepkwa Friend

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    I have had the Allo Digi One Signature for a few days now. Running a ifi Ipower to the clean side(AtomicBob approved) with PiCore OS. Comparisons where done using my speaker system.
    It still amazes me how different these networkplayers can sound!

    It is pretty clear right from the start that this is a solid upgrade to the normal DigiOne I have. More speed, authority, control, and space. Best of all, a greater sense of ease than what the normal DigiOne can muster.

    Not quite as round (thick) sounding as the Eitr either. The Eitr are fed from the Pi's USB inputs, so I do not know if Eitr would improve from better USB source (likely).

    This I will be my source for a while. Thanks to @Hands for the suggestion.
     
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2018
  9. ctrlm

    ctrlm New

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    OK, 3 days into ownership of the Digione Signature player (with Volumio OS) and I've had more than enough of comparing it to my Auralic Aries Femto. This comparison caper has knobs on it...I was starting to doubt my own sanity based on some of the differences I was imagining I was hearing!

    I'll try to keep this as short as I can and not detail all the variations I made with power supplies etc and listening impressions by specific tracks, the chain used was as follows:

    NAS (Minimserver) via router & wireless bridge > PLAYER > MiniDSP DDRC-22D > Chord Qutest DAC > MF M6 500i int amp > B&W 803 D2 speakers. Tracks used for evaluating were anything and everything from neo classical to rock.

    I actually have 2 DACs in my setup but decided to stick with one for the comparison. The Aries was powered by the SBooster LPS (much better than the Auralic LPS) and the Signature got the Uptone LPS 1.2 on the clean side. I've heard the Aries being described as too analytical by some people but in my setup in sounds pretty damn good. On the UI side of things I will declare my love for Auralic's Lightning DS and my disdain for Volumio that won't recognize my embedded album art. :mad: Thank goodness for the Lumin App which is no Lightning DS but pretty good and better for me than Volumio.

    From a strictly tonal perspective this was a fairly even split and it really depended on the particular material being played. The Aries had a bit more low end, with kick drums for example being a bit more prominent, the top end was also a little hotter. I would describe the Signature as a bit more balanced and smoother. Both sound signatures had their place depending on the particular mastering so not exactly a clear winner as far as tonality is concerned but I guess I would give the nod to the Signature for it's more balanced presentation.

    Now we get on to the two things that really separate the two. The first one is obviously value for money, which the Signature wins hands down. The second (saving the best for last) is sound stage. The difference between these two in sound stage was very obvious. The very first track I played on the Signature was "Walking on the Moon" by the Police while I was fiddling around on the iPad and I remember looking up in surprise as I had never heard those cymbals sit so far back behind the other instruments in their own space. Of course it does depend on the particular track but the sound stage (particularly depth) and separation using the Signature leaves the Aries for dead. That's not to say that the Aries doesn't have a decent sound stage - it does, the Signature just takes it up another level and compliments the capability of the Chord DAC much better than the Aries. I really need to spend some time now with my Pavane to see if there is a similar effect.

    I still love my dependable Aries but it is going to handle dedicated headphone duties in another room from now on and the Digione Signature will stay in my main setup. I think it's amazing how many lower cost quality options there are now available compared to just a few years ago, the industry is being pushed and we as consumers are the winners. Is the Allo product as good as much higher priced and newer products than the Aries? I don't know and I don't really care as I'm over spending big $$$ to listen to music.
     
  10. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    Not to go into an LPS craze, but did you compare your LS-1 to the stock power supply?

    I'm really happy that you have an Aries Femto as that's a great point of reference for me.
     
  11. ctrlm

    ctrlm New

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    The stock supply is for the Pi board only (dirty side). Allo don't recommend the stock SMPS for the Digione board (clean side) so I went straight to the LPS 1.2 for that and briefly tried both the SMPS and a spare LPS (JS-2) for the dirty side without much of a noticeable difference.

    I'm loathe to start putting SMPSs back into my setup as the SQ has improved since I got rid of them all and I no longer have an occasional mild hum in my amp.
     
  12. marflao

    marflao Acquaintance

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  13. Raicorl

    Raicorl Acquaintance

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  14. musicfirst

    musicfirst Almost 60, supposedly still hears ant farts

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    Are there combo all in one CDP/streamer/servers out there? Or are you better off with two boxes?
     
  15. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    If you have to do all in one, consider the Marantz ND8006 for $1200. Plays CD and is also a streaming box. Does use DNLA/UPnP so you can push any file you want in the network. Keep in mind I don't know if via streaming it will support gapless.

    Might be wise to see if you like the Marantz sound from that unit. I do see that that unit does have Digital Output via Coax and Toslink, so you can hook up any DAC you want and let the ND8006 do all the transport work for you.

    Then again, it's a lot cheaper to go separate here IMO. Only get it if you want an all in one unit that does everything for you in one box. Marantz does offer Three Year Warranty on all products.
     
  16. Biodegraded

    Biodegraded Friend

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    2nd hand CDP with a good mechanism (see the CDP/T thread) + RPi with Allo DigiOne Signature and spend the money saved on several hundred CDs.
     
  17. mitochondrium

    mitochondrium Friend

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    Given the list of the gear you own you may be willing to spend some serious money:

    https://www.ta-hifi.de/en/audiosystems/series-8/mp-8/

    Havn’t Heard the thing but T&A are not known for dabbling if they do something, they are also not known to be front runners in the value for money sector.
    I thought that McIntosh have something similar alas I was mistaken, you can always buy their umbrella for 45 $. Seems they are way more than a manufacturer of hifi gear.
    Personally since I have ripped all my CDs I havn’t touched one of them. I am digitising my vinyl at the moment. Then running Daphile on an UpBoard is all I need in terms of sources.
     
  18. Biodegraded

    Biodegraded Friend

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  19. Maximillion

    Maximillion Acquaintance

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    There is a cheaper Ambre on the way - the 'Baby Ambre'. I think it ships in Feb. Currently £313+VAT which is not that much more expensive than a Signature. The comparison between the two will be interesting.
    https://metrumacoustics.com/product/babyambre-by-metrum-acoustics/
     
    Last edited: Dec 25, 2018
  20. Orkney

    Orkney Acquaintance

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    I've had an Amber for a few weeks now. Works well thus far, though I'm still getting dropouts on HD material via Roon, which has been a problem on most streamers I've used. And the fintermittently lashing LAN light is now wearing tape to dull the glare.

    Would have considered a cheaper version had it been available when I bought, especially since the Ambre case is just wide enough to not fit beside the Onyx.
     

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