Dummies Guide to Pi2AES! Throw away your PC or laptop.

That will do the trick!

As for stock, we have them and will ship all current orders this Friday. All we are waiting on are the right angle power supply adapters that I have finally ordered! Eventually even I get the message!

 

I would appreciate any insight anyone has between the PI2AES and allo Digione Sig. I currently have a USBridge Sig and can add the Digione Sig or purchase a PI2AES kit. The cost is mostly a wash. The key difference is the Digione Sig won’t require another power supply, case and ethernet cable. I just don’t have any insight into SQ difference. Btw this will be connected to a Yggdrasil.

 

Based on jitter testing that I have done, the allo one signature with their special power supply is as good or possibly even slightly better than the PI2AES. the main benefits of our board have been the simplicity of powering as well as the multiple outputs. if you already have the power supply you need then then logic dictates you should stay with the allo family.

But, we would love to welcome you to the PI2AES world and hope you do come over from the dark side!

 

Damn, I thought this was the dark side

 

Do we have a dedicated Pi Q&A area? I'm curious how would I go about having MoOde and Kodi or whatever other HTPC type setup to playback my collection of of movies (J River Type thing?)

I want the Pi 7" Touchscreen running Moode and the HDMI out to a TV for Kodi or whatever. Not sure where to research this.

 

I’m gonna take the PI2AES leap based on all the positive reviews and Michael’s attention and assistance to his customers. If this provides the SQ as outlined in all the reviews then I’ll most likely will be selling my USBridge Sig player and Shanti LPS. Also will be selling my Modi Multibit DAC now that I have a Yggdrasil, all to offset my expense and keep the wife happy. From my reading of all the posts in this thread there seems to be a consensus that the recommended switched power supply and AES connection to my DAC will provide the best SQ, if I read this wrong please let me know.

 

Please report back with a comparison once you've tried the pi2AES.

 

Bear in mind, the largest difference you may hear between the two may be the result of the input on the Yggdrasil, more than the transport itself. And you may find it more “different” in some ways rather than “better”. There’s trade offs IMO switching from a dedicated USB transport through Unison, over to the Pi2AES into AES. Whether they will be clearly “better” is difficult to say. Depends on whether the differences you find are the things you prefer.

 

Thanks @Michael Kelly for fact that you liked the above post. ^^. Right on.

 

My Pi2AES finally arrived after a month. Building it took all of five minutes (thanks Marv for the detailed instructions). My unit came just five screws instead of required eight. Not a deal breaker in any case but worth mentioning.
My operating system of choice is DietPi (more on that later on)

I set out to compare it directly against my Allo USBridge Signature (powered by an Sbooster, also running DietPi). Both streamers are conected to my Yggdrassil A2 Unison (Pi2AES over AES/EBU using an analog xlr interconnect because I don't have a proper 110 ohm impedance cable on hand).
Impressions gathered both on speakers and headphones.
I went through the variety of tracks and really only found (or convinced myself that I did) differences in two tracks, Morcheeba's Blood Like Lemonade and Neyla Pekarek's The Attack. In both tracks the vocals were a bit smoother and more relaxed on the Pi2AES, additionally the double bass on The Attack had a bit more body to it. With that said the difference was small enough that I don't think I would've caught it if I wasn't actively looking for it. I'll probably do some more comparisons tomorrow but my first impressions are very positive. Pi2AES definitely holds its own against a more expensive device while offering more features (multiple outputs and builtin wifi).

Spoiler: What is DietPi

In short, DietPi is an operating system for regular x86 PCs and single board computers that allows for extremely easy software deployment so that a device running it can be turned into whatever you want (be it an appliance, a desktop or a server) with just a few commands. Moreover, the entire provisioning and deployment can be automated by modifying a config file after burning the operating system to the SD card. Moreover, DietPi also allows preloading of Wi-Fi credentials which makes the entire deployment so much simpler than either Ropieee (wired connection for Wi-Fi setup) or Volumio (Hot Spot for initial setup). No matter how many devices you need to setup, the procedure remains extremely simple, burn the image to the micro SD card, copy over the config file as well as the Wi-Fi credentials file, plug the card in and power the device on. After initial setup DietPi will automagically connect to the predefined Wi-Fi network (or networks), download all the necessary software packages and then configure them. This may not seem like such a big deal if you have a wired connection to where your streamer is going to sit but if you need to connect over Wi-Fi then this function alone makes worth switching over.

 

Well said. Recently I’ve been comparing my USBridge Sig to a 2009 Mac Mini > Eitr > SPDIF both into my Yggdrasil w Unison. I believe the Mac Mini SPDIF sounds a bit more detailed and spacious but both are very good. My goal w the PI2AES is to have it be at least comparable to the Mac Mini > Eitr setup since I’m not sure how much longer my Mac mini is going to last and I prefer not to replace it with another PC if at all possible. If the PI2AES SQ exceeds my current setup all the better.

 

I will be running Moode on my PI2AES. When selecting the Device in Moode what have people found to be the best - HiFiberry Digi+ Pro, Allo Digione, Allo Digione Sig? or something else?

 

They Allo DigiOne and HiFiberry Digi+ Pro are the same driver underneath, just different names. Not sure about the sig.

 

Finding Volumio increasingly frustrating for the following reasons:

• AirPlay frequently can't see Volumio (admittedly, maybe an AirPlay problem)
• Occasionally, Volumio doesn't show on my network and requires a complete system reboot (including my router)
• Volumio changes IP address with some frequency
• Via Volumio's Tidal feature some playlists are incomplete
• Adding a track to an existing Tidal playlist is not possible (or I can't find it)
• When a track in Tidal completes playing, the record of the track disappears (i.e., there's no record of what just played - super frustrating if you liked it and wanted to favourite it)
• Tidal's search feature is a bit wonky to say the least - e.g., clicking on an artist reveals no tracks or albums in spite of them existing on real Tidal
• The main play/pause button often doesn't work

For all these reasons and probably some more I've had enough.

Going to give Moode a go - to do so do I need to buy a new Pi or do I just need a new SD card, and replace the existing Volumio SD card with the Moode one? Anything else I need to be aware of?

 

Anyone order this from the EU yet? Seems to be no way to get around import duties?

 

You will just need to format your sd card and write the new image to it.

 

Or buy a new SD card. That way if you ever decide to try going back to Volumio you just have to swap cards. I keep a free different images around for my Pi2AES so I can experiment and don’t get complacent with RoPieeeXL.

 

I did and nope, there's no way around it. It took a month to arrive so you'll have to be patient

Try DietPi, it's pretty lightweight and stable

 

I am having a problem with pi2aes on my headphone system. I have tested the pi2aes on my main system using the aes output and everything works. When i hook it up to my chord hugo dac/headphone amp i get no sound. I am running spdif rca from the pi2aes to the rca input of the hugo.I am using volumio. I tried switching drivers from the allo to hifi berry but no luck. Is there anything else i should be trying or is the hugo not compatible with the pi2aes. Any help would be appreciated

 

Considering the AES output works, your Pi/Pi2AES setup is probably good. Is there another way you could test the digital RCA input for the Hugo and/or the digital RCA output of the Pi2AES? That could narrow down the culprit.