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

less than 100ma at 24V.

 

I have some updates on the PI2AES production. Good news, we are shipping units and are about half way through the backlog. Bad news, I found out the assembly house will not take another order for at least 2 months due to their backlog. Our order size is simply not sufficient to move to the head of the line.

What this means is that we will need to go elsewhere, which also means at a higher cost. So as of now the price of the PI2AES has increased to $199. All other items stay the same as our costs for those have not changed more than a few percent. We will have about 100 units in inventory once we finish the backlog. And those are likely all we can get until mid summer or later. I am sorry there was no warning since this is also a way to slow demand and gather more funds for the next build.

I realize you have other options and I would certainly recommend you look at them seriously if your budget is constrained.

Best regards,
Michael

 

Tangential rant but it's always been surprising to me how crappy most interface / UX is with most software, especially before Apple got popular in the late 2000's / early 2010's. Like you put so much effort and work into figuring everything out, doing all the hard programming work and everything else, but then you hamstring the interface + UX and probably block off 50-90% of potential users. Even worse, someone else comes in and capitalizes on your crappy interface and maybe makes more $ than you do on it.

Or maybe I'm a dumb lazy noob.

Regardless, here's to hoping roon prices come down now that Apple and Amazon are doing lossless, etc.

 

Another vote for Roon here. I'll include that the difference between setting up Roon/RopieeeXL, and setting up BubbleUPnP/Moode was significant.

I didn't have a ask a single noob question on this thread when setting up Roon, but I had to ask several when setting up BubbleUPnP. Roon is smooth, easy and great for boneheads like me who have never messed with Linux before pi2AES.

 

A lot of it comes down to development priority and the developers’ own vision of how the software should look or work. Most people get locked into a “this is what I’m used to, this is what I want” mindset and it takes someone outside of the grind of development who has vision to direct things in a positive direction. Jobs had a famous quote where he said something like Apple didn’t use focus groups because users didn’t know what they wanted until you gave it to them. And even then you’ll have a significant and often loud minority who is resistant to change. Think like when the Mac first showed up to challenge command line type interfaces or when the iPhone came out and people clung to their blackberries like grim death. The paradigm doesn’t shift gently.

I tried Roon out a few months ago when they had the three month trial for $1 or whatever and used it for a bit but ultimately canceled. I do like the look of it (more in screenshots than actual practice, though I really like the use of white space in the new version) but if you use a streaming service that has a connect type service it’s probably not going to be worth buying a roon license on top of that, especially now that everything is going lossless.

The first generation of music interfaces were list based (folders, etc.), the second were graphical (scrolling through albums), the third is natural language search based (think a google search vs a list of websites) which lends itself well to voice commands, the fourth will be AI. Each generation is more difficult to implement than its predecessor and the latter requires user data that a small company like roon simply can’t get. The more users a company has the more likely it has data on users with similar tastes and can anticipate the music you’ll like.

Anyway this discussion should probably be moved to a different thread though as long as the Pi exists at least as a renderer the pi2aes will be viable.

 

Fantastic thread started by @Woland

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...treamer-configuration-tips.11017/#post-348643

Should start to help answer many questions for new and seasoned Volumio users.

 

Everybody thinks UI/UX is easy. It’s all “look and feel” and “common sense”. The problem is most companies leave their UI/UX to their application programmers/developers, and unless they’re a unicorn, they generally suck at UI/UX. You need those with specific design skills and research (usability testing) abilities and expertise/experience, which many companies don’t even realize they need (for reasons stated at the beginning) or they feel it’s not worth investing in.

 

In my experience UI/UX is "overlooked" for two reasons:

The dev team (be they engineers, business people, whatever) have spent so much time with the product that they've learned exactly how to do everything. So the product IS intuitive. But only to them. So handing it off to the UI/UX peeps is mostly done for a cursory look in order to check off that box from the development paradigm.

For UI/UX to be done right, it has to be a prominent part of development from day zero. But most companies don't make it a priority because it costs more money (man-hours) and slows down the pace of development.

Ultimately, the quick prototypes end up becoming the almost final for the consumer version.

 

^ All true in my experience but it's still very unfortunate that it works out this way.

 

I just got my Pi2AES. I have been running my Bifrost 2 directly from my Pi 4 via Ropieee and now Volumio for some time… Maybe it’s just me but, damn. This does indeed sound better to my ears. MUCH better detail retrieval. I am running it with separate power supplies and am using the coax connection to my Bifrost 2. For power I am using one the supplied PSU’s from Pi2AES and then an IFI Power for the pi main board. I have say I am impressed. Maybe it’s the excitement of getting it up and running but there is a marked improvement to my ears.

That said, I was unfortunately shorted a couple of the screws but I was able to get a kit on amazon for a few bucks. I purchased the touch display case and i think there are a couple of more screws that should have been in my baggie. No big deal though.

Lastly, I was debating getting two devices initially because I have two primary listening areas but I balked in favor of testing just the one first... And yea, I just placed the second order (the fear of loss of previous posts also drove this decision). So yea, I think this thing is worth it especially if you are just streaming via USB directly to an external DAC and your comfortable with tinkering.

I’m really excited to get the missing screws so that I can get the touch screen up and running.

Has anyone tried hooking up the Pi2AES to the USBrige Sig from Allo? I wonder if it would have any impact. I am currently using one of those with my Yiggy to it USB port. Maybe I can do some drilling and make it all work.

 

Very sorry about the missing parts. We know that some kits are missing the 11mm M2.5 Male-Female standoffs. They are available on Amazon from a number of vendors such as this one:

https://www.amazon.com/uxcell-Male-Female-Motherboard-Standoff-Quadcopter/dp/B08F251GW1

We will reimburse the cost. Just send us an email ([email protected]) and include your PayPal email.

 

I thought about that too yes, don't have a sig yet though. Would you know what drilling it would take?

 

I have the USBridge Sig with the aluminum case. I havent looked at it in a little but but I don't think too much drilling or If i can just take the top of the case off that might work. Again, I gotta look more closely. Work has been keeping me busy on the week days so I may not get a chance until this weekend.

First thoughts are that if its not in a cabinet It might look kinda weird. I'm also am not too sure how much of a sonic impact it would have. I have been using the Pi2AES (Pi 4) all weekend with my bifrost 2 and have been really happy with it. I also added the touch screen which makes it a pretty cool looking device.

I currently have the USBridgeSig feeding my Yggdrasil via Gen 5 USB. I want to go AES to the Yggdrasil and from what I've read here and other places just going to AES I should see some improvement.

 

https://shop.pikvm.org/product/metal-case-for-pi-kvm-v3
pikvm added the metal case to their shop. As you can see it's not that expensive

 

Thanks! I was'nt sure what you meant - the size of usbridge + pi2aes will not be a problem for me. I would be really really thankful if you could test them out together, I've thought about getting a usbridge since getting the pi2aes ;-) It is strange but no one seems to have tried (?). I just saw that allo has a 10 days refund for any reason, but with shipping it's not long to check it out. I am using pi3 + pi2aes + shanti (for both) + a very good AES cable.

 

Regarding the USBridge, I believe the Pi USB shortcomings it lists on the product page can be addressed in software in less time than placing an order on a website. I will post instructions in the Volumio tips thread this weekend.

Another option is to use a Pi Zero which doesn't have the listed shortcomings because it has a single USB and no ethernet. That should cost you around $20 with the cables etc.

Maybe send a $131 donation to SBAF instead...

 

just hooked up. using picore player and qobuz. can only listen to qobuz thru LMS. qobuz does not show my dac or the pi2aes. on pcp i used allo digi one. suggestions?
thanks

 

I have my PI2AES feeding AES into my Yggdrasil and there is no better sound source in my system. When compared to BNC from the PI2AES, AES has more life and effortless delivery that is noticeable. IMHO.

I believe the opinion here is that I2S is the only improvement that you could make over AES (which is not available on the Yggdrasil).

You should move the PI2AES from the BF2 over to the Yggdrasil and test it out. Enjoy!

 

The board to select is "Hifiberry Digi + Pro".