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

Update - I realized that there is a flaw in this path. By not setting up the WM8804 we get no AES output. Granted AES is truly limited to 192Khz, but this means changing the driver to do I2S at 384Khz, then back to the regular driver to use AES.

Is this a fatal flaw? Also I need to figure out how to get that driver to be used by Volumio, Moode, Ropieee, et al. Right now only GentooPlayer has it listed.

 

Playing a 384Khz 24bit test tone (1Khz) stops playing after a few seconds. buffering maybe? Or are we out of range for the specs of the device.

 

Hi Michael:
All morning I have been playing PCM768 via I2S out of my Mercury (V1), under GentooPlayer--set just as RoonBridge, with Roon Core doing the upsampling of Redbook files on a separate server--no pops or stops whatsoever.

 

Well wouldn't DSD512 over DoP would be equivalent data rate of DSD1024?
My Holo Spring DAC can accept PCM768 and DSD512, but via DoP I only ever (even with other computers/streamers) got to DSD256 via DoP. And DSD256(DoP) is what I now can play through Mercury over I2S. That seems right.

What DAC and player s/w are you using?

 

GentooPlayer/roonbridge into a topping dx7s. Not the highest caliber dac, but I am loathe to drop 1K+ for testing.

 

The DX7S does not have I2S input so what are you using for testing of that from you products—since I2S is the application being discussed.

 

mine does. I use it every day for acceptance testing of our units.

 

I wonder if @rlow would still come to the same conclusion almost 5 years later with the new mercury 3(aes) vs sms-200 usb to Unison. The sms is $500 , which is the same price as the mercury 3. Is the sms-200 similar to the mercury 3 by design? Streaming tidal and qobuz? Still learning about these streamers.

 

Hard to say without hearing one. Would love to hear the latest Mercury, but have also stepped above the Sotm a while ago anyhow, so the goalposts have moved (as well as the price point).

Regardless, I’m willing to bet money that the Mercury v3 kicks ass for the price.

 

That's fkn awesome you replied! I thought it was a fantastic review which led me to explore which I don't need to do right now. There's a neo ultra on fleabay right now for $1000

 

As of now(2 hours and counting) I have everything set up including the wireless network. Subscribed to volumio for the year in order to use Tidal. Trying to play songs i keep getting this error. Not sure what to do at this point.

 

That looks like a default WiFi address. Are you sure you set it up fully? 404 is a file not found error code.

 

Thanks for the reply Mike. I think I did. When I'm in volumio is says that I'm connected to my wifi network. I used Marvs tutorial on page one using fing to do the ip thing. Honestly I'm not 100% certain that everything is correct. Obviously there's some operator error going on. Now the challenge is fixing it which I'm up for. Lol

 

I'm stumped. I've gone through all of Marvs steps. For whatever reason , fings ip results seem wrong. I'm guessing default ip's. Same error every time. My Comcast ip is way different than what fing is posting.

 

Marv's instructions are from 2020, and Volumio have improved their setup procedure since then. It isn't necessary to use Fing or find IP addresses, and if you're setting up to use wifi you don't need to do the initial setup while connected wired. Try a clean setup using Volumio's own instructions, then the only thing you need to update is the I2S DAC settings as Marv did.

 

Well, I got it working. I googled the problem and did exactly what someone else did 7 days ago with tidal. I simply logged out of tidal in volumio and logged back in and viola it's playing music.

 

Well, I ordered a wiim pro on Saturday and it arrived today. Wanted to see what all the cult like cheerleading was about. I'm REALLY digging the mercury 3. Right now I'm using it AES out to the Gungnir 2 , to the Mjolnir 3 to HD800S. What a fkn experience! Will report back on the wiim.

 

Bits are bits, right?? LOL. Well, the wiim is back in the box. @theveterans is correct! Granted , I'm not using the Unison input on the G2. The wiim pro only has optical and coax. The mercury 3 on AES completely smokes the wiim pro regardless of the output on the wiim. I went back and forth on a few of my test tracks and the wiim just sounded flat, the stage collapsed a good bit. Definitely not as engaging. It also seemed to add a slight sibilance to the upper mid/lower treble. Now I can rest my mind knowing I bought an awesome product in the Mercury 3, and I know what a wiim is now. The mercury is worth every penny!

 

Wow! @purr1n just put a yt vid out comparing the wiim pro and Mercury 3. They heard it exactly how I did.

 

The wiim nuts over on headfi are insufferable! God forbid you recommend a better product and give your comparison opinion. Literally the Amir jumps out of them with "I suggest you do a blind test". I don't need to be blind to know how bad the wiim is. Trust me, if I could have gotten by with $150 streamer that was on par with the mercury, it's a no brainer. It's just not the case. Lol