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

likin’ what I hear George

2.0 - solid af
1541 DAC - solid af
Bjc bnc - solid af (if I had known you needed one I would have given you mine for free, it’s just sitting in a drawer ever since I moved on from my gungnir mb a1)

 

The 2.0 uses the same core circuitry that the original did, but it does not have the wide input switcher that converts to 5V. So, if nothing else, there is less overall power supply noise floating around. However, just like the original, there are very low noise LDO‘s, feeding both the clock chips and the AES transmitter.

unfortunately, we don’t have a $30,000 analyzer to be able to tease out every last microvolt of measurement.

 

I have placed an order for a Pi2AES 2.0 Michael, thank you.

 

So I'm not sure if this has been touched on in this thread, but I've just got the PI2AES 2.0 purchased and set up to run to a Soekris 2541 DAC which I also have just purchased.

I've noticed that the AES sounds a lot more dynamic but also BRIGHT. (It's made even the HD 650s sound fatiguing in the treble, I kid you not, and this out of a Bryston BHA-1 DAC.) Has anyone encountered this before and does it go away after awhile?

 

can you try the other inputs? The AES signal is a much higher voltage than the others due to its differential nature. It’s possible that it is overdriving the input circuits on your DAC during peak signal.

 

@THeProfessor , does the DAC's clipping indicator (red flickering of the 'clip' light) come on a lot? High input voltage with the DAC's gain set to 0 dBFS might result in clipping with a lot of material; see this post and the one following for cause & effect. Maybe that's what you're hearing.

Cure: turn the DAC's gain down ~ 3dB, or more if needed to get the clipping to stop.

 

From what I have been reading, wired vs wifi is dependent on the details of your system, but both can work well if properly implemented. To quote from a Darko blog post,

"Bucking that trend this year is, ironically, AURALiC whose Aries G1 streamer comes with both Ethernet and WiFi but whose Lightning DS app directs us first to WiFi, not Ethernet, when adding the G1 to the network.

Responding to my ‘WTF?’ via email, AURALiC CEO Xuanqian Wang came back with a detailed reply as to why. His reasoning echoes the aforementioned thinking of the audiophile switch/router crowd but instead moves the conversation (and our data connections with it) back to WiFi where, according to Wang, electrical noise minimisation is also possible:

"“The network router, the NAS and other network device are directly attached to the router using Ethernet cable which can be quite noisy. If the streamer is attached to the router using Ethernet cable then the noise can easily be transmitted to the streamer over this physical link. The regular CE, FCC and other EMC standards only guarantee the device will work stably, but when we are talking about sound quality, we are actually talking about EMI noise that is 1/1000 of the EMC’s standard, so it affects [sound quality] a lot. That’s why audiophiles say different NAS or different routers sound different.

The Ethernet cable is [also] a big problem. It runs long and can pick up low-frequency noise which cannot be filtered out. This noise will introduce jitter at low frequencies which no PLL circuit can get rid of and it will affect sound quality a lot.

WiFi will sound better if:

The engineer that designed the streamer knows how to design the WiFi module right. ‘Right’ means the module does not introduce noise to other audio circuits sharing the same ground circuit;

The WiFi signal between streamer and router is strong and stable. This is because if you have a poor WiFi signal, the WiFi protocol will try to fetch the data again and again due to large error rate (Yes, we use TCP to transfer music data which has error correction). If there are too many retries, it will add additional load to the processor and potentially generate more EMI noise.

The reason that many audiophile companies claim Ethernet to sound better is that they are not capable of designing a good WiFi circuit and they have no such background knowledge (poor WiFi network). All our streamers use existing Intel WiFi modules because they work well on a Linux system and they are well designed with minimum EMI noise generation and, most importantly, we know how to design the circuit around it correctly.”"

Our man from China’s fresh approach stands on the neck of collective audiophile thinking, choking anyone who sees Ethernet vs. Wifi as a black and white issue. It isn’t."

The thing is, as much as I am enjoying reading about the wired approach, it is both spendy and impossible to do in my house (too much drywall). We know that the Raspberry Pi is a noisy beast and that it's internal wifi is not likely to be the quietest solution. Can anybody suggest how to get a quieter wifi player without getting spendy? Since Mr. Wang likes Intel wifi modules in the quote above, I have been wondering if I couldn't do an Intel wifi USB module plugged into the RPi/Pi2AES, but I'm not sure how to get Picoreplayer or Moode to use the USB module.

@Michael Kelly

A question about Pi2AES 2.0. The comparison chart on your website shows Pi2AES 2.0 doesn't support Parallel i2s, but your pdf talks about Parallel i2s over an expansion header. Is parallel i2s available on 2.0 and, if available, which pins connect? I gather that they are not buffered connections if available.

Sorry for the weird use of bold type. with the nested quotes, it got hard to figure out who was say what.

Jac

 

They are on the PI Header. The original PI2AES had a buffer so you could attach directly without too much concern. The 2.0 does not have a buffer so attaching to these signals is not supported. Doesn't mean you can't do it and be successful, just that we won't guarantee it.

 

someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying.


@Michael Kelly

 

Pi2AES 2.0 has arrived. Trying to build case and struggling. Have mounted the standoffs. Mounted the Pi4 on the standoffs. Attached the longer standoffs to the small standoff screws. Mounted the Pi2AES 2.0. Now on Step 6. Place the M2.5, 11mm Male to Female Standoffs on to the PI2AES. They haven't been supplied. What to do please?

 

Aah - ignore my last. I've worked it out. The longest brass coloured standoffs screw on to those, then the lid screws to those. Onwards!

 

So, I've just spent the last hour or so listening to a variety of music streamed from my local library or the internet using Roon. The Pi2AES 2.0 was powered via the Pi board with a LPSU. The chain was:

Roon Nucleus > Supra Cat 8 > Ubiquiti Switch > Fibre > FMC with LPSU > Supra Cat 8 > Pi2AES 2.0 with LPSU > Blue Jeans BNC > Audial S5 > Blue Jeans RCA > Linear Tube Audio MZ3 > ZMF Atrium Open Ltd

This combination is providing the best SQ of my system to date. Beautiful layered music , presented on an enveloping three dimensional soundstage. Stunning. Bewitching. Beguiling. I love it!

I may try I2S out at some point, but for the moment this is just perfect. Thanks Michael.

 

Hey there thanks for these nice responses. Been away on vacation so slow to respond. In listening over the past week the brightness has gone down A LOT. Either I've adjusted or something has changed.

Following @Michael Kelly 's suggestion I turned down the gain a bit as the flashing light was indeed coming on more than it should have been.

I was also using a brand new AES / EBU cable and there might have been a "burn in." I did none of this scientifically to know cause-effect but the issue is gone now mostly so I'm a happy camper.

 

Actually that was @Biodegraded that suggested the gain change.

 

How do I turn the dacs gain ~3db if my DAC only has a 'relative' volume control (0 to 90)?

 

If it's a Soekris dac1321, which doesn't have a display, RTFM yields the following:

"Volume LED: The volume LED brightness indicates current volume, from -80 dB to +10 dB. The volume knob is using a digital encoder to set the volume level digitally from -80 dB to +10 dB in precise 1 dB steps. If you connect the Line Out to a system with a volume knob you might want to set the dac1321 Line Out volume startup level to a fixed 0 dB, you can do that by turning the volume up to -4 or higher, easiest is just to turn it full up (without music playing), then store the startup setting by pressing and holding the “FILTER” button for 4 seconds. The volume control is then inactive, it can be made active again by holding the “FILTER” button for 4 seconds again."

The 'steps' referred to are detented, so 1 click = 1 dB.

 

Oh no sorry it's a completely different device, and sort of an unrelated question I guess - if there's a way to turn down something by 3db if it doesn't have a reference scale and its arbitrary scale isn't mapped to dbs.

 

Many of you may already know, but there is a really useful web site that provides global, real time stock tracking for all Raspberry Pi products.

https://rpilocator.com/

 

I suggest turning it down with your peakiest music track until you see no clipping indication. Note that I refer to the digital volume coming from the streamer, not the final volume, if any, out of the DAC.

 

In honor of the hot summer we are taking 20% off the PI2AES-LITE. It is now $199! Quantities are limited and once they’re gone...

The LITE has the same core design and 5V input as the new PI2AES 2.0, but is without the AES balanced and the I2S over HDMI. Now that the PI 4 is more readily available this makes a super high quality streamer for under $300 total. And as with the 2.0 the clear acrylic case is included.

Ok that’s enough marketing drivel!